A  BOOK-LOVER'S 
HOLIDAYS  IN  THE  OPEN 


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From  a  painting  by  Theodore  B.  Pitman  in  possession  of  Colonel  Roosevelt. 

On  the  brink  of  the  Grand  Canvon. 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S 

HOLIDAYS  IN  THE  OPEN 


BY 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  March,  1916 


So 

ARCHIE    AND    QUENTIN 


333773 


FOREWORD 

THE  man  should  have  youth  and  strength 
who  seeks  adventure  in  the  wide,  waste  spaces 
of  the  earth,  in  the  marshes,  and  among  the  vast 
mountain  masses,  in  the  northern  forests,  amid 
the  steaming  jungles  of  the  tropics,  or  on  the 
deserts  of  sand  or  of  snow.  He  must  long 
greatly  for  the  lonely  winds  that  blow  across 
the  wilderness,  and  for  sunrise  and  sunset  over 
the  rim  of  the  empty  world.  His  heart  must 
thrill  for  the  saddle  and  not  for  the  hearthstone. 
He  must  be  helmsman  and  chief,  the  cragsman, 
the  rifleman,  the  boat  steerer.  He  must  be  the 
wielder  of  axe  and  of  paddle,  the  rider  of  fiery 
horses,  the  master  of  the  craft  that  leaps  through 
white  wrater.  His  eye  must  be  true  and  quick, 
his  hand  steady  and  strong.  His  heart  must 
never  fail  nor  his  head  grow  bewildered,  whether 
he  face  brute  and  human  foes,  or  the  frowning 
strength  of  hostile  nature,  or  the  awful  fear 
that  grips  those  who  are  lost  in  trackless  lands. 
Wearing  toil  and  hardship  shall  be  his;  thirst 
and  famine  he  shall  face,  and  burning  fever. 
Death  shall  come  to  greet  him  with  poison-fang 


Vll 


viii  FOREWORD 

or  poison-arrow,  in  shape  of  charging  beast  or 
of  scaly  things  that  lurk  in  lake  and  river;  it 
shall  lie  in  wait  for  him  among  untrodden  for 
ests,  in  the  swirl  of  wild  waters,  and  in  the  blast 
of  snow  blizzard  or  thunder-shattered  hurricane. 

Not  many  men  can  with  wisdom  make  such 
a  life  their  permanent  and  serious  occupation. 
Those  whose  tasks  lie  along  other  lines  can  lead 
it  for  but  a  few  years.  For  them  it  must  nor 
mally  come  in  the  hardy  vigor  of  their  youth,  be 
fore  the  beat  of  the  blood  has  grown  sluggish 
in  their  veins. 

Nevertheless,  older  men  also  can  find  joy  in 
such  a  life,  although  in  their  case  it  must  be 
led  only  on  the  outskirts  of  adventure,  and  al 
though  the  part  they  play  therein  must  be  that 
of  the  onlooker  rather  than  that  of  the  doer. 
The  feats  of  prowess  are  for  others.  It  is  for 
other  men  to  face  the  peril  of  unknown  lands, 
to  master  unbroken  horses,  and  to  hold  their 
own  among  their  fellows  with  bodies  of  supple 
strength.  But  much,  very  much,  remains  for 
the  man  who  has  "warmed  both  hands  before 
the  fire  of  life,"  and  who,  although  he  loves  the 
great  cities,  loves  even  more  the  fenceless  grass 
land,  and  the  forest-clad  hills. 

The  grandest  scenery  of  the  world  is  his  to 
look  at  if  he  chooses;  and  he  can  witness  the 


FOREWORD  ix 

strange  ways  of  tribes  who  have  survived  into 
an  alien  age  from  an  immemorial  past,  tribes 
whose  priests  dance  in  honor  of  the  serpent  and 
worship  the  spirits  of  the  wolf  and  the  bear. 
Far  and  wide,  all  the  continents  are  open  to 
him  as  they  never  were  to  any  of  his  fore 
fathers;  the  Nile  and  the  Paraguay  are  easy 
of  access,  and  the  borderland  between  savagery 
and  civilization;  and  the  veil  of  the  past  has 
been  lifted  so  that  he  can  dimly  see  how,  in  time 
immeasurably  remote,  his  ancestors  —  no  less 
remote  —  led  furtive  lives  among  uncouth  and 
terrible  beasts,  whose  kind  has  perished  utterly 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  He  will  take  books 
with  him  as  he  journeys;  for  the  keenest  en 
joyment  of  the  wilderness  is  reserved  for  him 
who  enjoys  also  the  garnered  wisdom  of  the 
present  and  the  past.  He  will  take  pleasure  in 
the  companionship  of  the  men  of  the  open;  in 
South  America,  the  daring  and  reckless  horse 
men  who  guard  the  herds  of  the  grazing  country, 
and  the  dark-skinned  paddlers  who  guide  their 
clumsy  dugouts  down  the  dangerous  equatorial 
rivers;  the  white  and  red  and  half-breed  hunt 
ers  of  the  Rockies,  and  of  the  Canadian  wood 
land;  and  in  Africa  the  faithful  black  gun- 
bearers  who  have  stood  steadily  at  his  elbow 
when  the  lion  came  on  with  coughing  grunts,  or 


x  FOREWORD 

when  the  huge  mass  of  the  charging  elephant 
burst  asunder  the  vine-tangled  branches. 

The  beauty  and  charm  of  the  wilderness  are 
his  for  the  asking,  for  the  edges  of  the  wilderness 
lie  close  beside  the  beaten  roads  of  present 
travel.  He  can  see  the  red  splendor  of  desert 
sunsets,  and  the  unearthly  glory  of  the  after 
glow  on  the  battlements  of  desolate  mountains. 
In  sapphire  gulfs  of  ocean  he  can  visit  islets, 
above  which  the  wings  of  myriads  of  sea-fowl 
make  a  kind  of  shifting  cuneiform  script  in  the 
air.  He  can  ride  along  the  brink  of  the  stu 
pendous  cliff- walled  canyon,  where  eagles  soar 
below  him,  and  cougars  make  their  lairs  on  the 
ledges  and  harry  the  big-horned  sheep.  He  can 
journey  through  the  northern  forests,  the  home 
of  the  giant  moose,  the  forests  of  fragrant  and 
murmuring  life  in  summer,  the  iron-bound  and 
melancholy  forests  of  winter. 

The  joy  of  living  is  his  who  has  the  heart  to 
demand  it. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

SAGAMORE  HILL,  January  1,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

I.    A  COUGAR  HUNT  ON  THE  RIM  OF 

THE  GRAND  CANYON    ....  1 

II.    ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT  .     .  29 

III.  THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE    ...  63 

IV.  THE   RANCHLAND   OF  ARGENTINA 

AND  SOUTHERN  BRAZIL     ...  98 

V.    A  CHILEAN  RONDEO 117 

VI.    ACROSS  THE  ANDES  AND  NORTHERN 

PATAGONIA 130 

VII.     WILD  HUNTING  COMPANIONS   .     .  152 
VIII.     PRIMITIVE  MAN;  AND  THE  HORSE, 

THE    LlON,    AND    THE    ELEPHANT  190 

IX.     BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  IN  THE  OPEN  259 

X.     BIRD   RESERVES  AT  THE  MOUTH 

OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI      ....  274 

XI.    A  CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE      .     .     .  318 
APPENDICES: 

A 359 

B  .  366 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


On  the  brink  of  the  Grand  Canyon      .      .     Frontispiece 

From  a  painting  by  Theodore  B.  Pitman,  reproduced  in 
color. 


Colonel  Roosevelt  and  Arthur  Lirette  with  antlers 

of  moose  shot  September  19,  1915    .   Facing  page  348 
From  a  photograph  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 

Antlers  of   moose  shot  September  19,  1915,  with 

Springfield  rifle  No.  6000,  Model  1903   .      .    Page  356 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S 
HOLIDAYS  IN  THE  OPEN 


COME  away !     Come  away !     There's  a  frost  along  the 

marshes, 
And  a  frozen  wind  that  skims  the  shoal  where  it  shakes 

the  dead  black  water; 
There's  a  moan  across  the  lowland  and  a  wailing  through 

the  woodland 
Of  a  dirge  that  seeks  to  send  us  back  to  the  arms  of  those 

that  love  us. 

Come  away !  come  away ! — or  the  roving  fiend  will  hold 

us, 
And  make  us  all  to  dwell  with  him  to  the  end  of  human 

faring. 

EDWIN  ARLINGTON  ROBINSON. 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 
IN  THE  OPEN 

CHAPTER  I 

A    COUGAR   HUNT   ON   THE   RIM   OF   THE 
GRAND    CANYON 

ON  July  14,  1913,  our  party  gathered  at 
the  comfortable  El  Tovar  Hotel,  on  the 
edge  of  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colo 
rado,  and  therefore  overlooking  the  most  won 
derful  scenery  in  the  world.  The  moon  was 
full.  Dim,  vast,  mysterious,  the  canyon  lay 
in  the  shimmering  radiance.  To  all  else  that 
is  strange  and  beautiful  in  nature  the  Canyon 
stands  as  Karnak  and  Baalbec,  seen  by  moon 
light,  stand  to  all  other  ruined  temples  and 
palaces  of  the  bygone  ages. 

With  me  were  my  two  younger  sons,  Archie 
and  Quentin,  aged  nineteen  and  fifteen  respec 
tively,  and  a  cousin  of  theirs,  Nicholas,  aged 
twenty.  The  cousin  had  driven  our  horses,  and 
what  outfit  we  did  not  ourselves  carry,  from 

southern  Arizona  to  the  north  side  of  the  can- 

i 


2         A  :BOQK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

yon,  and  had  then  crossed  the  canyon  to  meet 
us.  The  youngest  one  of  the  three  had  not  be 
fore  been  on  such  a  trip  as  that  we  intended  to 
take;  but  the  two  elder  boys,  for  their  good 
fortune,  had  formerly  been  at  the  Evans  School 
in  Mesa,  Arizona,  and  among  the  by-products 
of  their  education  was  a  practical  and  working 
familiarity  with  ranch  life,  with  the  round-up, 
and  with  travelling  through  the  desert  and  on 
the  mountains.  Jesse  Cummings,  of  Mesa,  was 
along  to  act  as  cook,  packer,  and  horse-wrangler, 
helped  in  all  three  branches  by  the  two  elder 
boys;  he  was  a  Kentuckian  by  birth,  and  a 
better  man  for  our  trip  and  a  stancher  friend 
could  not  have  been  found. 

On  the  15th  we  went  down  to  the  bottom  of 
the  canyon.  There  we  were  to  have  been  met 
by  our  outfit  with  two  men  whom  we  had  en 
gaged;  but  they  never  turned  up,  and  we 
should  have  been  in  a  bad  way  had  not  Mr. 
Stevenson,  of  the  Bar  Z  Cattle  Company,  come 
down  the  trail  behind  us,  while  the  foreman  of 
the  Bar  Z,  Mr.  Mansfield,  appeared  to  meet 
him,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  rushing,  muddy 
torrent  of  the  Colorado.  Mansfield  worked  us 
across  on  the  trolley  which  spans  the  river;  and 
then  we  joined  in  and  worked  Stevenson,  and 
some  friends  he  had  with  him,  across.  Among 


A  COUGAR  HUNT  3 

us  all  we  had  food  enough  for  dinner  and  for 
a  light  breakfast,  and  we  had  our  bedding. 
With  characteristic  cattleman's  generosity,  our 
new  friends  turned  over  to  us  two  pack-mules, 
which  could  carry  our  bedding  and  the  like, 
and  two  spare  saddle-horses — both  the  mules 
and  the  spare  saddle-horses  having  been  brought 
down  by  Mansfield  because  of  a  lucky  mistake 
as  to  the  number  of  men  he  was  to  meet. 

Mansfield  was  a  representative  of  the  best 
type  of  old-style  ranch  foreman.  It  is  a  hard 
climb  out  of  the  canyon  on  the  north  side,  and 
Mansfield  was  bound  that  we  should  have  an 
early  start.  He  was  up  at  half-past  one  in  the 
morning;  we  breakfasted  on  a  few  spoonfuls 
of  mush;  packed  the  mules  and  saddled  the 
horses;  and  then  in  the  sultry  darkness,  which 
in  spite  of  the  moon  filled  the  bottom  of  the 
stupendous  gorge,  we  started  up  the  Bright 
Angel  trail.  Cummings  and  the  two  elder  boys 
walked;  the  rest  of  us  were  on  horseback.  The 
trail  crossed  and  recrossed  the  rapid  brook,  and 
for  rods  at  a  time  went  up  its  bowlder-filled 
bed;  groping  and  stumbling,  we  made  our 
blind  way  along  it;  and  over  an  hour  passed 
before  the  first  grayness  of  the  dawn  faintly 
lighted  our  footsteps. 

At  last  we  left  the  stream  bed,  and  the  trail 


4         A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

climbed  the  sheer  slopes  and  zigzagged  upward 
through  the  breaks  in  the  cliff  walls.  At  one 
place  the  Bar  Z  men  showed  us  where  one  of 
their  pack-animals  had  lost  his  footing  and 
fallen  down  the  mountainside  a  year  previously. 
It  was  eight  hours  before  we  topped  the  rim 
and  came  out  on  the  high,  wooded,  broken 
plateau  which  at  this  part  of  its  course  forms 
the  northern  barrier  of  the  deep-sunk  Colorado 
River.  Three  or  four  miles  farther  on  we  found 
the  men  who  were  to  have  met  us;  they  were 
two  days  behindhand,  so  we  told  them  we 
would  not  need  them,  and  reclaimed  what 
horses,  provisions,  and  other  outfit  were  ours. 
With  Cummings  and  the  two  elder  boys  we 
were  quite  competent  to  take  care  of  ourselves 
under  all  circumstances,  and  extra  men,  tents, 
and  provisions  merely  represented  a  slight,  and 
dispensable,  increase  in  convenience  and  com 
fort. 

As  it  turned  out,  there  was  no  loss  even  of 
comfort.  We  went  straight  to  the  cabin  of  the 
game  warden,  Uncle  Jim  Owens;  and  he  in 
stantly  accepted  us  as  his  guests,  treated  us  as 
such,  and  accompanied  us  throughout  our  fort 
night's  stay  north  of  the  river.  A  kinder  host 
and  better  companion  in  a  wild  country  could 
not  be  found.  Through  him  we  hired  a  very 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  5 

good  fellow,  a  mining  prospector,  who  stayed 
with  us  until  we  crossed  the  Colorado  at  Lee's 
Ferry.  He  was  originally  a  New  York  State 
man,  wrho  had  grown  up  in  Montana,  and  had 
prospected  through  the  mountains  from  the 
Athabaska  River  to  the  Mexican  boundary. 
Uncle  Jim  was  a  Texan,  born  at  San  Antonio, 
and  raised  in  the  Panhandle,  on  the  Goodnight 
ranch.  In  his  youth  he  had  seen  the  thronging 
myriads  of  bison,  and  taken  part  in  the  rough 
life  of  the  border,  the  life  of  the  cow-men,  the 
buffalo-hunters,  and  the  Indian-fighters.  He 
was  by  instinct  a  man  of  the  right  kind  in  all 
relations;  and  he  early  hailed  with  delight  the 
growth  of  the  movement  among  our  people  to 
put  a  stop  to  the  senseless  and  wanton  destruc 
tion  of  our  wild  life.  Together  with  his  —  and 
my  —  friend  Buffalo  Jones  he  had  worked  for  the 
preservation  of  the  scattered  bands  of  bison;  he 
was  keenly  interested  not  only  in  the  preserva 
tion  of  the  forests  but  in  the  preservation  of 
the  game.  He  had  been  two  years  buffalo  war 
den  in  the  Yellowstone  National  Park.  Then 
he  had  come  to  the  Colorado  National  Forest 
Reserve  and  Game  Reserve,  where  he  had 
been  game  warden  for  over  six  years  at  the 
time  of  our  trip.  He  has  given  zealous  and 
efficient  service  to  the  people  as  a  whole;  for 


6         A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

which,  by  the  way,  his  salary  has  been  an  in 
adequate  return.  One  important  feature  of  his 
work  is  to  keep  down  the  larger  beasts  and  birds 
of  prey,  the  arch-enemies  of  the  deer,  mountain- 
sheep,  and  grouse;  and  the  most  formidable 
among  these  foes  of  the  harmless  wild  life  are 
the  cougars.  At  the  time  of  our  visit  he  owned 
five  hounds,  which  he  had  trained  especially, 
as  far  as  his  manifold  duties  gave  him  the  time, 
to  the  chase  of  cougars  and  bobcats.  Coyotes 
were  plentiful,  and  he  shot  these  wherever  the 
chance  offered;  but  coyotes  are  best  kept  down 
by  poison,  and  poison  cannot  be  used  where 
any  man  is  keeping  the  hounds  with  which 
alone  it  is  possible  effectively  to  handle  the 
cougars. 

At  this  point  the  Colorado,  in  its  deep  gulf, 
bends  south,  then  west,  then  north,  and  in 
closes  on  three  sides  the  high  plateau  which  is 
the  heart  of  the  forest  and  game  reserve.  It 
was  on  this  plateau,  locally  known  as  Buckskin 
Mountain,  that  we  spent  the  next  fortnight. 
The  altitude  is  from  eight  thousand  to  nearly 
ten  thousand  feet,  and  the  climate  is  that  of 
the  far  north.  Spring  does  not  come  until 
June;  the  snow  lies  deep  for  seven  months. 
We  were  there  in  midsummer,  but  the  ther 
mometer  went  down  at  night  to  36,  34,  and  once 


A  COUGAR  HUNT  7 

to  33  degrees  Fahrenheit;  there  was  hoarfrost 
in  the  mornings.  Sound  was  our  sleep  under 
our  blankets,  in  the  open,  or  under  a  shelf  of 
rock,  or  beneath  a  tent,  or  most  often  under  a 
thickly  leaved  tree.  Throughout  the  day  the 
air  was  cool  and  bracing. 

Although  we  reached  the  plateau  in  mid- 
July,  the  spring  was  but  just  coming  to  an  end. 
Silver-voiced  Rocky  Mountain  hermit-thrushes 
chanted  divinely  from  the  deep  woods.  There 
were  multitudes  of  flowers,  of  which,  alas !  I 
know  only  a  very  few,  and  these  by  their  ver 
nacular  names;  for  as  yet  there  is  no  such  hand 
book  for  the  flowers  of  the  southern  Rocky 
Mountains  as,  thanks  to  Mrs.  Frances  Dana, 
we  have  for  those  of  the  Eastern  States,  and, 
thanks  to  Miss  Mary  Elizabeth  Parsons,  for 
those  of  California.  The  sego  lilies,  looking  like 
very  handsome  Eastern  trilliums,  were  as  plen 
tiful  as  they  were  beautiful;  and  there  were  the 
striking  Indian  paint-brushes,  fragrant  purple 
locust  blooms,  the  blossoms  of  that  strange 
bush  the  plumed  acacia,  delicately  beautiful 
white  columbines,  bluebells,  great  sheets  of  blue 
lupin,  and  the  tall,  crowded  spikes  of  the  bril 
liant  red  bell  —  and  innumerable  others.  The 
rainfall  is  light  and  the  ground  porous;  springs 
are  few,  and  brooks  wanting;  but  the  trees  are 


8         A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

handsome.  In  a  few  places  the  forest  is  dense; 
in  most  places  it  is  sufficiently  open  to  allow  a 
mountain-horse  to  twist  in  and  out  among  the 
tree  trunks  at  a  smart  canter.  The  tall  yellow 
pines  are  everywhere;  the  erect  spires  of  the 
mountain-spruce  and  of  the  blue-tipped  West 
ern  balsam  shoot  up  around  their  taller  cousins, 
and  the  quaking  asps,  the  aspens  with  their 
ever-quivering  leaves  and  glimmering  white  boles, 
are  scattered  among  and  beneath  the  conifers, 
or  stand  in  groves  by  themselves.  Blue  grouse 
were  plentiful  -  -  having  increased  greatly,  partly 
because  of  the  war  waged  by  Uncle  Jim  against 
their  foes  the  great  horned  owls;  and  among 
the  numerous  birds  were  long-crested,  dark -blue 
jays,  pinyon-jays,  doves,  band-tailed  pigeons, 
golden-winged  flickers,  chickadees,  juncos, 
mountain-bluebirds,  thistle-finches,  and  Loui 
siana  tanagers.  A  very  handsome  cock  tanager, 
the  orange  yellow  of  its  plumage  dashed  with 
red  on  the  head  and  throat,  flew  familiarly 
round  Uncle  Jim's  cabin,  and  spent  most  of  its 
time  foraging  in  the  grass.  Once  three  birds 
flew  by  which  I  am  convinced  were  the  strange 
and  interesting  evening  grosbeaks.  Chipmunks 
and  white-footed  mice  lived  in  the  cabin,  the 
former  very  bold  and  friendly;  in  fact,  the  chip 
munks,  of  several  species,  were  everywhere; 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  9 

and  there  were  gophers  or  rock-squirrels,  and 
small  tree-squirrels,  like  the  Eastern  chickarees, 
and  big  tree-squirrels  —  the  handsomest  squirrels 
I  have  ever  seen  --  with  black  bodies  and  bushy 
white  tails.  These  last  lived  in  the  pines,  were 
diurnal  in  their  habits,  and  often  foraged  among 
the  fallen  cones  on  the  ground;  and  they  were 
strikingly  conspicuous. 

We  met,  and  were  most  favorably  impressed 
by,  the  foresi  supervisor,  and  some  of  his  rangers. 
This  forest  and  game  reserve  is  thrown  open  to 
grazing,  as  with  all  similar  reserves.  Among  the 
real  settlers,  the  home-makers  of  sense  and  far 
sightedness,  there  is  a  growing  belief  in  the  wis 
dom  of  the  policy  of  the  preservation  of  the 
national  resources  by  the  National  Government. 
On  small,  permanent  farms,  the  owner,  if  reason 
ably  intelligent,  will  himself  preserve  his  own 
patrimony;  but  everywhere  the  uncontrolled  use 
in  common  of  the  public  domain  has  meant  reck 
less,  and  usually  wanton,  destruction.  All  the 
public  domain  that  is  used  should  be  used  under 
strictly  supervised  governmental  lease;  that  is, 
the  lease  system  should  be  applied  everywhere 
substantially  as  it  is  now  applied  in  the  forest. 
In  every  case  the  small  neighboring  settlers,  the 
actual  home-makers,  should  be  given  priority  of 
chance  to  lease  the  land  in  reasonable  sized 


10       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

tracts.  Continual  efforts  are  made  by  dema 
gogues  and  by  unscrupulous  agitators  to  excite 
hostility  to  the  forest  policy  of  the  government; 
and  needy  men  who  are  short-sighted  and  un 
scrupulous  join  in  the  cry,  and  play  into  the 
hands  of  the  corrupt  politicians  who  do  the 
bidding  of  the  big  and  selfish  exploiters  of  the 
public  domain.  One  device  of  these  politicians 
is  through  their  representatives  in  Congress  to 
cut  down  the  appropriation  for  the  forest  ser 
vice;  and  in  consequence  the  administrative 
heads  of  the  service,  in  the  effort  to  be  econom 
ical,  are  sometimes  driven  to  the  expedient  of 
trying  to  replace  the  permanently  employed 
experts  by  short-term  men,  picked  up  at  hap 
hazard,  and  hired  only  for  the  summer  season. 
This  is  all  wrong:  first,  because  the  men  thus 
hired  give  very  inferior  service;  and,  second, 
because  the  government  should  be  a  model  em 
ployer,  and  should  not  set  a  vicious  example  in 
hiring  men  under  conditions  that  tend  to  create 
a  shifting  class  of  laborers  who  suffer  from  all 
the  evils  of  unsteady  employment,  varied  by 
long  seasons  of  idleness.  At  this  time  the  best 
and  most  thoughtful  farmers  are  endeavoring 
to  devise  means  for  doing  away  with  the  system 
of  employing  farm-hands  in  mass  for  a  few 
months  and  then  discharging  them;  and  the 


A  COUGAR  HUNT  11 

government  should  not  itself  have  recourse  to 
this  thoroughly  pernicious  system. 

The  preservation  of  game  and  of  wild  life 
generally -- aside  from  the  noxious  species  - 
on  these  reserves  is  of  incalculable  benefit  to 
the  people  as  a  whole.  As  the  game  increases 
in  these  national  refuges  and  nurseries  it  over 
flows  into  the  surrounding  country.  Very 
wealthy  men  can  have  private  game-preserves 
of  their  own.  But  the  average  man  of  small  or 
moderate  means  can  enjoy  the  vigorous  pastime 
of  the  chase,  and  indeed  can  enjoy  wild  nature, 
only  if  there  are  good  general  laws,  properly 
enforced,  for  the  preservation  of  the  game  and 
wild  life,  and  if,  furthermore,  there  are  big 
parks  or  reserves  provided  for  the  use  of  all 
our  people,  like  those  of  the  Yellowstone,  the 
Yosemite,  and  the  Colorado. 

A  small  herd  of  bison  has  been  brought  to 
the  reserve;  it  is  slowly  increasing.  It  is  pri 
vately  owned,  one-third  of  the  ownership  being 
in  Uncle  Jim,  who  handles  the  herd.  The 
government  should  immediately  buy  this  herd. 
Everything  should  be  done  to  increase  the 
number  of  bison  on  the  public  reservations. 

The  chief  game  animal  of  the  Colorado  Can 
yon  reserve  is  the  Rocky  Mountain  blacktail, 
or  mule,  deer.  The  deer  have  increased  greatly 


12       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

in  numbers  since  the  reserve  was  created,  partly 
because  of  the  stopping  of  hunting  by  men, 
and  even  more  because  of  the  killing  off  of  the 
cougars.  The  high  plateau  is  their  summer 
range;  in  the  winter  the  bitter  cold  and  driving 
snow  send  them  and  the  cattle,  as  well  as  the 
bands  of  wild  horses,  to  the  lower  desert  coun 
try.  For  some  cause,  perhaps  the  limestone 
soil,  their  antlers  are  unusually  stout  and  large. 
We  found  the  deer  tame  and  plentiful,  and  as 
we  rode  or  walked  through  the  forest  we  con 
tinually  came  across  them  —  now  a  doe  with 
her  fawn,  now  a  party  of  does  and  fawns,  or  a 
single  buck,  or  a  party  of  bucks.  The  antlers 
were  still  in  the  velvet.  Does  would  stand  and 
watch  us  go  by  within  fifty  or  a  hundred  yards, 
their  big  ears  thrown  forward;  while  the  fawns 
stayed  hid  near  by.  Sometimes  we  roused  the 
pretty  spotted  fawns,  and  watched  them  dart 
away,  the  embodiments  of  delicate  grace.  One 
buck,  when  a  hound  chased  it,  refused  to  run 
and  promptly  stood  at  bay;  another  buck 
jumped  and  capered,  and  also  refused  to  run, 
as  we  passed  at  but  a  few  yards'  distance.  One 
of  the  most  beautiful  sights  I  ever  saw  was  on 
this  trip.  We  were  slowly  riding  through  the 
open  pine  forest  when  we  came  on  a  party  of 
seven  bucks.  Four  were  yearlings  or  two-year- 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  13 

olds;  but  three  were  mighty  master  bucks,  and 
their  velvet-clad  antlers  made  them  look  as  if 
they  had  rocking-chairs  on  their  heads.  Stately 
of  port  and  bearing,  they  walked  a  few  steps  at 
a  time,  or  stood  at  gaze  on  the  carpet  of  brown 
needles  strewn  with  cones;  on  their  red  coats 
the  flecked  and  broken  sun -rays  played;  and  as 
we  watched  them,  down  the  aisles  of  tall  tree 
trunks  the  odorous  breath  of  the  pines  blew  in 
our  faces. 

The  deadly  enemies  of  the  deer  are  the  cou 
gars.  They  had  been  very  plentiful  all  over  the 
table-land  until  Uncle  Jim  thinned  them  out, 
killing  between  two  and  three  hundred.  Usually 
their  lairs  are  made  in  the  well-nigh  inacces 
sible  ruggedness  of  the  canyon  itself.  Those 
which  dwelt  in  the  open  forest  were  soon  killed 
off.  Along  the  part  of  the  canyon  where  we 
hunted  there  was  usually  an  upper  wall  of 
sheer  white  cliffs;  then  came  a  very  steep  slope 
covered  by  a  thick  scrub  of  dwarf  oak  and 
locust,  with  an  occasional  piny  on  or  pine;  and 
then  another  and  deeper  wall  of  vermilion 
cliffs.  It  was  along  this  intermediate  slope 
that  the  cougars  usually  passed  the  day.  At 
night  they  came  up  through  some  gorge  or 
break  in  the  cliff  and  rambled  through  the 
forests  and  along  the  rim  after  the  deer.  They 


14       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

are  the  most  successful  of  all  still-hunters, 
killing  deer  much  more  easily  than  a  wolf  can; 
and  those  we  killed  were  very  fat. 

Cougars  are  strange  and  interesting  crea 
tures.  They  are  among  the  most  successful 
and  to  their  prey  the  most  formidable  beasts 
of  rapine  in  the  world.  Yet  when  themselves 
attacked  they  are  the  least  dangerous  of  all 
beasts  of  prey,  except  hyenas.  Their  every 
movement  is  so  lithe  and  stealthy,  they  move 
with  such  sinuous  and  noiseless  caution,  and 
are  such  past  masters  in  the  art  of  concealment, 
that  they  are  hardly  ever  seen  unless  roused 
by  dogs.  In  the  wilds  they  occasionally  kill 
wapiti,  and  often  bighorn  sheep  and  white 
goats;  but  their  favorite  prey  is  the  deer. 

Among  domestic  animals,  while  they  at  times 
kill  all,  including,  occasionally,  horned  cattle, 
they  are  especially  destructive  to  horses.  Among 
the  first  bands  of  horses  brought  to  this  plateau 
there  were  some  of  which  the  cougars  killed 
every  foal.  The  big  males  attacked  full-grown 
horses.  Uncle  Jim  had  killed  one  big  male 
wjiich  had  killed  a  large  draft-horse,  and 
another  which  had  killed  two  saddle-horses  and 
a  pack-mule,  although  the  mule  had  a  bell  on 
its  neck,  which  it  was  mistakenly  supposed 
would  keep  the  cougar  away.  We  saw  the 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  15 

skeleton  of  one  of  the  saddle-horses.  It  was 
killed  when  snow  was  on  the  ground,  and  when 
Uncle  Jim  first  saw  the  carcass  the  marks  of 
the  struggle  were  plain.  The  cougar  sprang  on 
its  neck,  holding  the  face  with  the  claws  of  one 
paw,  while  his  fangs  tore  at  the  back  of  the 
neck,  just  at  the  base  of  the  skull;  the  other 
fore  paw  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  neck,  and 
the  hind  claws  tore  the  withers  and  one  shoulder 
and  flank.  The  horse  struggled  thirty  yards  or 
so  before  he  fell,  and  never  rose  again.  The 
draft-horse  was  seized  in  similar  fashion.  It 
went  but  twenty  yards  before  falling;  then  in 
the  snow  'could  be  seen  the  marks  where  it  had 
struggled  madly  on  its  side,  plunging  in  a 
circle,  and  the  marks  of  the  hind  feet  of  the 
cougar  in  an  outside  circle,  while  the  fangs  and 
fore  talons  of  the  great  cat  never  ceased  tearing 
the  prey.  In  this  case  the  fore  claws  so  ripped 
and  tore  the  neck  and  throat  that  it  was  doubt 
ful  whether  they,  and  not  the  teeth,  had  not 
given  the  fatal  wounds. 

We  came  across  the  bodies  of  a  number  of 
deer  that  had  been  killed  by  cougars.  Gen 
erally  the  remains  were  in  such  condition  that 
we  could  not  see  how  the  killing  had  been  done. 
In  one  or  two  cases  the  carcasses  were  sufficiently 
fresh  for  us  to  examine  them  carefully.  One 


16       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

doe  had  claw  marks  on  her  face,  but  no  fang 
marks  on  the  head  or  neck;  apparently  the 
neck  had  been  broken  by  her  own  plunging 
fall;  then  the  cougar  had  bitten  a  hole  in  the 
flank  and  eaten  part  of  one  haunch;  but  it  had 
not  disembowelled  its  prey,  as  an  African  lion 
would  have  done.  Another  deer,  a  buck,  was 
seized  in  similar  manner;  but  the  death -wound 
was  inflicted  with  the  teeth,  in  singular  fashion, 
a  great  hole  being  torn  into  the  chest,  where 
the  neck  joins  the  shoulder.  Evidently  there 
is  no  settled  and  invariable  method  of  killing. 
We  saw  no  signs  of  any  cougar  being  injured 
in  the  struggle;  the  prey  was  always  seized 
suddenly  and  by  surprise,  and  in  such  fashion 
that  it  could  make  no  counter-attack. 

Few  African  leopards  would  attack  such 
quarry  as  the  big  male  cougars  do.  Yet  the 
leopard  sometimes  preys  on  man,  and  it  is  the 
boldest  and  most  formidable  of  fighters  when 
brought  to  bay.  The  cougar,  on  the  contrary, 
is  the  least  dangerous  to  man  of  all  the  big  cats. 
There  are  authentic  instances  of  its  attacking 
man ;  but  they  are  not  merely  rare  but  so  wholly 
exceptional  that  in  practise  they  can  be  en 
tirely  disregarded.  There  is  no  more  need  of 
being  frightened  when  sleeping  in,  or  wander 
ing  after  nightfall  through,  a  forest  infested  by 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  17 

cougars  than  if  they  were  so  many  tom-cats. 
Moreover,  when  itself  assailed  by  either  dogs  or 
men  the  cougar  makes  no  aggressive  fight.  It 
will  stay  in  a  tree  for  hours,  kept  there  by  a 
single  dog  which  it  could  kill  at  once  if  it  had 
the  heart  —  and  this  although  if  hungry  it  will 
itself  attack  and  kill  any  dog,  and  on  occasions 
even  a  big  wolf.  If  the  dogs  —  or  men  - 
come  within  a  few  feet,  it  will  inflict  formidable 
wounds  with  its  claws  and  teeth,  the  former 
being  used  to  hold  the  assailant  while  the  latter 
inflict  the  fatal  bite.  But  it  fights  purely  on 
the  defensive,  whereas  the  leopard  readily  as 
sumes  the  offensive  and  often  charges,  at  head 
long,  racing  speed,  from  a  distance  of  fifty  or 
sixty  yards.  It  is  absolutely  safe  to  walk  up  to 
within  ten  yards  of  a  cougar  at  bay,  whether 
wounded  or  unwounded,  and  to  shoot  it  at 
leisure. 

Cougars  are  solitary  beasts.  When  full-grown 
the  females  outnumber  the  males  about  three 
to  one;  and  the  sexes  stay  together  for  only  a 
few  days  at  mating-time.  The  female  rears 
her  kittens  alone,  usually  in  some  cave;  the 
male  would  be  apt  to  kill  them  if  he  could  get 
at  them.  The  young  are  playful.  Uncle  Jim 
once  brought  back  to  his  cabin  a  young  cougar, 
two  or  three  months  old.  At  the  time  he  had  a 


18       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

hound  puppy  named  Pot  —  he  was  an  old  dog, 
the  most  dependable  in  the  pack,  when  we 
made  our  hunt.  Pot  had  lost  his  mother;  Uncle 
Jim  was  raising  him  on  canned  milk,  and,  as  it 
was  winter,  kept  him  at  night  in  a  German 
sock.  The  young  cougar  speedily  accepted 
Pot  as  a  playmate,  to  be  enjoyed  and  tyran 
nized  over.  The  two  would  lap  out  of  the  same 
dish;  but  when  the  milk  was  nearly  lapped  up, 
the  cougar  would  put  one  paw  on  Pot's  face, 
and  hold  him  firmly  while  it  finished  the  dish 
itself.  Then  it  would  seize  Pot  in  its  fore  paws 
and  toss  him  up,  catching  him  again;  while 
Pot  would  occasionally  howl  dismally,  for  the 
young  cougar  had  sharp  little  claws.  Finally 
the  cougar  would  tire  of  the  play,  and  then  it 
would  take  Pot  by  the  back  of  the  neck,  carry 
him  off,  and  put  him  down  in  his  box  by  the 
German  sock. 

When  we  started  on  our  cougar  hunt  there 
were  seven  of  us,  with  six  pack-animals.  The 
latter  included  one  mule,  three  donkeys  —  two 
of  them,  Ted  and  Possum,  very  wise  donkeys  — 
and  two  horses.  The  saddle-animals  included 
two  mules  and  five  horses,  one  of  which  solemnly 
carried  a  cow-bell.  It  was  a  characteristic  old- 
time  Western  outfit.  We  met  with  the  cus 
tomary  misadventures  of  such  a  trip,  chiefly 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  19 

in  connection  with  our  animals.  At  night  they 
were  turned  loose  to  feed,  most  of  them  with 
hobbles,  some  of  them  with  bells.  Before  dawn, 
two  or  three  of  the  party  -  -  usually  including 
one,  and  sometimes  both,  of  the  elder  boys  — 
were  off  on  foot,  through  the  chilly  dew,  to 
bring  them  in.  Usually  this  was  a  matter  of 
an  hour  or  two;  but  once  it  took  a  day,  and 
twice  it  took  a  half-day.  Both  breaking  camp 
and  making  camp,  with  a  pack-outfit,  take 
time;  and  in  our  case  each  of  the  packers,  in 
cluding  the  two  elder  boys,  used  his  own  hitch  — 
single-diamond,  squaw  hitch,  cow-man's  hitch, 
miner's  hitch,  Navajo  hitch,  as  the  case  might 
be.  As  for  cooking  and  washing  dishes  —  why, 
I  wish  that  the  average  tourist-sportsman,  the 
city-hunter-with-a-guide,  would  once  in  a  while 
have  to  cook  and  wash  dishes  for  himself;  it 
would  enable  him  to  grasp  the  reality  of  things. 
We  were  sometimes  nearly  drowned  out  by 
heavy  rain-storms.  We  had  good  food;  but 
the  only  fresh  meat  we  had  was  the  cougar 
meat.  This  was  delicious;  quite  as  good  as 
venison.  Yet  men  rarely  eat  cougar  flesh. 

Cougars  should  be  hunted  when  snow  is  on 
the  ground.  It  is  difficult  for  hounds  to  trail 
them  in  hot  weather,  when  there  is  no  water 
and  the  ground  is  dry  and  hard.  However,  we 


20       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

had  to  do  the  best  we  could;  and  the  frequent 
rains  helped  us.  On  most  of  the  hunting  days 
we  rode  along  the  rim  of  the  canyon  and  through 
the  woods,  hour  after  hour,  until  the  dogs  grew 
tired,  or  their  feet  sore,  so  that  we  deemed  it 
best  to  turn  toward  camp ;  having  either  struck 
no  trail  or  else  a  trail  so  old  that  the  hounds 
could  not  puzzle  it  out.  I  did  not  have  a  rifle, 
wishing  the  boys  to  do  the  shooting.  The  two 
elder  boys  had  tossed  up  for  the  first  shot, 
Nick  winning.  In  cougar  hunting  the  shot 
is  usually  much  the  least  interesting  and  im 
portant  part  of  the  performance.  The  credit 
belongs  to  the  hounds,  and  to  the  man  who 
hunts  the  hounds.  Uncle  Jim  hunted  his 
hounds  excellently.  He  had  neither  horn  nor 
whip;  instead,  he  threw  pebbles,  with  much 
accuracy  of  aim,  at  any  recalcitrant  dog — • 
and  several  showed  a  tendency  to  hunt  deer  or 
coyote.  "They  think  they  know  best  and  needn't 
obey  me  unless  I  have  a  nose-bag  full  of  rocks," 
observed  Uncle  Jim. 

Twice  we  had  lucky  days.  On  the  first  oc 
casion  we  all  seven  left  camp  by  sunrise  with 
the  hounds.  We  began  with  an  hour's  chase 
after  a  bobcat,  which  dodged  back  and  forth 
over  and  under  the  rim  rock,  and  finally  es 
caped  along  a  ledge  in  the  cliff  wall.  At  about 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  21 

eleven  we  struck  a  cougar  trail  of  the  night  be 
fore.  It  was  a  fine  sight  to  see  the  hounds  run 
ning  it  through  the  woods  in  full  cry,  while 
we  loped  after  them.  After  one  or  two  checks, 
they  finally  roused  the  cougar,  a  big  male,  from 
a  grove  of  aspens  at  the  head  of  a  great  gorge 
which  broke  through  the  cliffs  into  the  canyon. 
Down  the  gorge  went  the  cougar,  and  then 
along  the  slope  between  the  white  cliffs  and  the 
red;  and  after  some  delay  in  taking  the  wrong 
trail,  the  hounds  followed  him.  The  gorge  was 
impassable  for  horses,  and  we  rode  along  the 
rim,  looking  down  into  the  depths,  from  which 
rose  the  chiming  of  the  hounds.  At  last  a 
change  in  the  sound  showed  that  they  had  him 
treed;  and  after  a  while  we  saw  them  far  below 
under  a  pine,  across  the  gorge,  and  on  the  upper 
edge  of  the  vermilion  cliff  wall.  Down  we  went 
to  them,  scrambling  and  sliding;  down  a  break 
in  the  cliffs,  round  the  head  of  the  gorge  just 
before  it  broke  off  into  a  side-canyon,  through 
the  thorny  scrub  which  tore  our  hands  and 
faces,  along  the  slope  where,  if  a  man  started 
rolling,  he  never  would  stop  until  life  had  left 
his  body.  Before  we  reached  him  the  cougar 
leaped  from  the  tree  and  tore  off,  with  his  big 
tail  stretched  straight  as  a  bar  behind  him; 
but  a  cougar  is  a  short-winded  beast,  and  a 


22       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

couple  of  hundred  yards  on,  the  hounds  put 
him  up  another  tree.  Thither  we  went. 

It  was  a  wild  sight.  The  maddened  hounds 
bayed  at  the  foot  of  the  pine.  Above  them,  in 
the  lower  branches,  stood  the  big  horse-killing 
cat,  the  destroyer  of  the  deer,  the  lord  of  stealthy 
murder,  facing  his  doom  with  a  heart  both 
craven  and  cruel.  Almost  beneath  him  the 
vermilion  cliffs  fell  sheer  a  thousand  feet  with 
out  a  break.  Behind  him  lay  the  Grand  Can 
yon  in  its  awful  and  desolate  majesty. 

Nicholas  shot  true.  With  his  neck  broken, 
the  cougar  fell  from  the  tree,  and  the  body  was 
clutched  by  Uncle  Jim  and  Archie  before  it  could 
roll  over  the  cliff  -  -  while  I  experienced  a  mo 
ment's  lively  doubt  as  to  whether  all  three  might 
not  waltz  into  the  abyss  together.  Cautiously 
we  dragged  him  along  the  rim  to  another  tree, 
where  we  skinned  him.  Then,  after  a  hard 
pull  out  of  the  canyon,  we  rejoined  the  horses; 
rain  came  on;  and,  while  the  storm  pelted 
against  our  slickers  and  down-drawn  slouch- 
hats,  we  rode  back  to  our  water-drenched 
camp. 

On  our  second  day  of  success  only  three  of 
us  went  out --Uncle  Jim,  Archie,  and  I.  Un 
fortunately,  Quentin's  horse  went  lame  that 
morning,  and  he  had  to  stay  with  the  pack-train. 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  23 

For  two  or  three  hours  we  rode  through  the 
woods  and  along  the  rim  of  the  canyon.  Then 
the  hounds  struck  a  cold  trail  and  began  to 
puzzle  it  out.  They  went  slowly  along  to  one 
of  the  deep,  precipice-hemmed  gorges  which 
from  time  to  time  break  the  upper  cliff  wall  of 
the  canyon;  and  after  some  busy  nose-work 
they  plunged  into  its  depths.  We  led  our  horses 
to  the  bottom,  slipping,  sliding,  and  pitching, 
and  clambered,  panting  and  gasping,  up  the 
other  side.  Then  we  galloped  along  the  rim. 
Far  below  us  we  could  at  times  hear  the  hounds. 
One  of  them  was  a  bitch,  with  a  squealing  voice. 
The  other  dogs  were  under  the  first  cliffs,  work 
ing  out  a  trail,  which  was  evidently  growing 
fresher.  Much  farther  down  we  could  hear  the 
squealing  of  the  bitch,  apparently  on  another 
trail.  However,  the  trails  came  together,  and 
the  shrill  yelps  of  the  bitch  were  drowned  in 
the  deeper-toned  chorus  of  the  other  hounds, 
as  the  fierce  intensity  of  the  cry  told  that  the 
game  was  at  last  roused.  Soon  they  had  the 
cougar  treed.  Like  the  first,  it  was  in  a  pine 
at  the  foot  of  the  steep  slope,  just  above  the  ver 
milion  cliff  wall.  We  scrambled  down  to  the 
beast,  a  big  male,  and  Archie  broke  its  neck; 
in  such  a  position  it  was  advisable  to  kill  it 
outright,  as,  if  it  struggled  at  all,  it  was  likely 


24       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

to  slide  over  the  edge  of  the  cliff  and  fall  a  thou 
sand  feet  sheer. 

It  was  a  long  way  down  the  slope,  with  its 
jungle  of  dwarf  oak  and  locust,  and  the  climb 
back,  with  the  skin  and  flesh  of  the  cougar, 
would  be  heart-breaking.  So,  as  there  was  a 
break  in  the  cliff  line  above,  Uncle  Jim  suggested 
to  Archie  to  try  to  lead  down  our  riding  animals 
while  he,  Uncle  Jim,  skinned  the  cougar.  By  the 
time  the  skin  was  off,  Archie  turned  up  with  our 
two  horses  and  Uncle  Jim's  mule  —  an  animal 
which  galloped  as  freely  as  a  horse.  Then  the 
skin  and  flesh  were  packed  behind  his  and 
Uncle  Jim's  saddles,  and  we  started  to  lead 
the  three  animals  up  the  steep,  nearly  sheer 
mountainside.  We  had  our  hands  full.  The 
horses  and  mule  could  barely  make  it.  Fi 
nally  the  saddles  of  both  the  laden  animals 
slipped,  and  Archie's  horse  in  his  fright  nearly 
went  over  the  cliff  —  it  was  a  favorite  horse  of 
his,  a  black  horse  from  the  plains  below,  with 
good  blood  in  it,  but  less  at  home  climbing 
cliffs  than  were  the  mountain  horses.  On  that 
slope  anything  that  started  rolling  never  stopped 
unless  it  went  against  one  of  the  rare  pine  or 
piny  on  trees.  The  horse  plunged  and  reared; 
Archie  clung  to  its  head  for  dear  life,  trying  to 
prevent  it  from  turning  down-hill,  while  Uncle 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  25 

Jim  sought  to  undo  the  saddle  and  I  clutched 
the  bridle  of  his  mule  and  of  my  horse  and  kept 
them  quiet.  Finally  the  frightened  black  horse 
sank  on  his  knees  with  his  head  on  Archie's  lap; 
the  saddle  was  taken  off — and  promptly  rolled 
down-hill  fifty  or  sixty  yards  before  it  fetched 
up  against  a  piny  on;  we  repacked,  and  finally 
reached  the  top  of  the  rim. 

Meanwhile  the  hounds  had  again  started, 
and  we  concluded  that  the  bitch  must  have 
been  on  the  trail  of  a  different  animal,  after 
all.  By  the  time  we  were  ready  to  proceed 
they  were  out  of  hearing,  and  we  completely 
lost  track  of  them.  So  Uncle  Jim  started  in 
the  direction  he  deemed  it  probable  they  would 
take,  and  after  a  while  we  were  joined  by  Pot. 
Evidently  the  dogs  were  tired  and  thirsty  and 
had  scattered.  In  about  an  hour,  as  we  rode 
through  the  open  pine  forest  across  hills  and 
valleys,  Archie  and  I  caught,  very  faintly,  a 
far-off  baying  note.  Uncle  Jim  could  not  hear 
it,  but  we  rode  toward  the  spot,  and  after  a 
time  caught  the  note  again.  Soon  Pot  heard 
it  and  trotted  toward  the  sound.  Then  we 
came  over  a  low  hill  crest,  and  when  half-way 
down  we  saw  a  cougar  crouched  in  a  pine  on 
the  opposite  slope,  while  one  of  the  hounds, 
named  Ranger,  uttered  at  short  intervals  a 


26       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

husky  bay  as  he  kept  his  solitary  vigil  at  the 
foot  of  the  tree.  Archie  insisted  that  I  should 
shoot,  and  thrust  the  rifle  into  my  hand  as  we 
galloped  down  the  incline.  The  cougar,  a 
'young  and  active  female,  leaped  out  of  the 
tree  and  rushed  off  at  a  gait  that  for  a  moment 
left  both  dogs  behind;  and  after  her  we  tore 
at  full  speed  through  the  woods  and  over  rocks 
and  logs.  A  few  hundred  yards  farther  on  her 
bolt  was  shot,  and  the  dogs,  and  we  also,  were 
at  her  heels.  She  went  up  a  pine  which  had  no 
branches  for  the  lower  thirty  or  forty  feet.  It 
was  interesting  to  see  her  climb.  Her  two  fore 
paws  were  placed  on  each  side  of  the  stem,  and 
her  hind  paws  against  it,  all  the  cla\vs  digging 
into  the  wood ;  her  body  was  held  as  clear  of  the 
tree  as  if  she  had  been  walking  on  the  ground, 
the  legs  being  straight,  and  she  walked  or  ran 
up  the  perpendicular  stem  w^ith  as  much  day 
light  between  her  body  and  the  trunk  as  there 
was  between  her  body  and  the  earth  when  she 
was  on  the  ground.  As  she  faced  us  among  the 
branches  I  could  only  get  a  clear  shot  into  her 
chest  where  the  neck  joins  the  shoulder;  down 
she  came,  but  on  the  ground  she  jumped  to  her 
feet,  ran  fifty  yards  with  the  dogs  at  her  heels, 
turned  to  bay  in  some  fallen  timber,  and  dropped 
dead. 


A   COUGAR  HUNT  27 

The  last  days  before  we  left  this  beautiful 
holiday  region  we  spent  on  the  table-land  called 
Greenland,  which  projects  into  the  canyon  east 
of  Bright  Angel.  We  were  camped  by  the  Drip 
ping  Springs,  in  singular  and  striking  surround 
ings.  A  long  valley  leads  south  through  the 
table-land;  and  just  as  it  breaks  into  a  sheer 
walled  chasm  which  opens  into  one  of  the  side 
loops  of  the  great  canyon,  the  trail  turns  into 
a  natural  gallery  along  the  face  of  the  cliff.  For 
a  couple  of  hundred  yards  a  rock  shelf  a  dozen 
feet  wide  runs  under  a  rock  overhang  which 
often  projects  beyond  it.  The  gallery  is  in 
some  places  twenty  feet  high;  in  other  places 
a  man  on  horseback  must  stoop  his  head  as  he 
rides.  Then,  at  a  point  where  the  shelf  broadens, 
the  clear  spring  pools  of  living  water,  fed  by 
constant  dripping  from  above,  lie  on  the  inner 
side  next  to  and  under  the  rock  wall.  A  little 
beyond  these  pools,  with  the  chasm  at  our  feet, 
and  its  opposite  wall  towering  immediately  in 
front  of  us,  we  threw  down  our  bedding  and 
made  camp.  Darkness  fell;  the  stars  were 
brilliant  overhead;  the  fire  of  pitchy  pine 
stumps  flared;  and  in  the  light  of  the  wavering 
flames  the  cliff  walls  and  jutting  rocks  mo 
mentarily  shone  with  ghastly  clearness,  and 
as  instantly  vanished  in  utter  gloom. 


28       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

From  the  southernmost  point  of  this  table 
land  the  view  of  the  canyon  left  the  beholder 
so^mn  with  the  sense  of  awe.  At  high  noon, 
under  the  unveiled  sun,  every  tremendous  de 
tail  leaped  in  glory  to  the  sight;  yet  in  hue  and 
shape  the  change  was  unceasing  from  moment 
to  moment.  When  clouds  swept  the  heavens, 
vast  shadows  were  cast;  but  so  vast  was  the 
canyon  that  these  shadows  seemed  but  patches 
of  gray  and  purple  and  umber.  The  dawn  and 
the  evening  twilight  were  brooding  mysteries 
over  the  dusk  of  the  abyss;  night  shrouded  its 
immensity,  but  did  not  hide  it;  and  to  none  of 
the  sons  of  men  is  it  given  to  tell  of  the  wonder 
and  splendor  of  sunrise  and  sunset  in  the  Grand 
Canyon  of  the  Colorado. 


CHAPTER  II 
ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT 

WE  dropped  down  from  Buckskin  Moun 
tain,  from  the  land  of  the  pine  and 
spruce  and  of  cold,  clear  springs,  into 
the  grim  desolation  of  the  desert.  We  drove 
the  pack-animals  and  loose  horses,  usually  one 
of  us  taking  the  lead  to  keep  the  trail.  The 
foreman  of  the  Bar  Z  had  lent  us  two  horses 
for  our  trip,  in  true  cattleman's  spirit;  another 
Bar  Z  man,  who  with  his  wife  lived  at  Lee's 
Ferry,  showed  us  every  hospitality,  and  gave  us 
fruit  from  his  garden,  and  chickens;  and  two  of 
the  Bar  Z  riders  helped  Archie  and  Nick  shoe 
one  of  our  horses.  It  was  a  land  of  wide  spaces 
and  few  people,  but  those  few  we  met  were  so 
friendly  and  helpful  that  we  shall  not  soon  for 
get  them. 

At  noon  of  the  first  day  we  had  come  down  the 
mountainside,  from  the  tall  northern  forest  trees 
at  the  summit,  through  the  scattered,  sprawling 
pinyons  and  cedars  of  the  side  slopes,  to  the 
barren,  treeless  plain  of  sand  and  sage-brush 

29 


30       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  greasewood.  At  the  foot  of  the  mountain 
we  stopped  for  a  few  minutes  at  an  outlying 
cow-ranch.  There  was  not  a  tree,  not  a  bush 
more  than  knee-high,  on  the  whole  plain  round 
about.  The  bare  little  ranch-house,  of  stone 
and  timber,  lay  in  the  full  glare  of  the  sun; 
through  the  open  door  wre  saw  the  cluttered 
cooking-utensils  and  the  rolls  of  untidy  bedding. 
The  foreman,  rough  and  kindly,  greeted  us 
from  the  door;  spare  and  lean,  his  eyes  blood 
shot  and  his  face  like  roughened  oak  from  the 
pitiless  sun,  wind,  and  sand  of  the  desert.  After 
we  had  dismounted,  our  shabby  ponies  moped 
at  the  hitching-post  as  we  stood  talking.  In 
the  big  corral  a  mob  of  half-broken  horses  were 
gathered,  and  two  dust-grimed,  hard-faced  cow- 
punchers,  lithe  as  panthers,  were  engaged  in 
breaking  a  couple  of  wild  ones.  All  around, 
dotted  with  stunted  sage-brush  and  greasewood, 
the  desert  stretched,  blinding  white  in  the  sun 
light;  across  its  surface  the  dust  clouds  moved 
in  pillars,  and  in  the  distance  the  heat-waves 
danced  and  wavered. 

During  the  afternoon  we  shogged  steadily 
across  the  plain.  At  one  place,  far  off  to  one 
side,  we  saw  a  band  of  buffalo,  and  between 
them  and  us  a  herd  of  wild  donkeys.  Otherwise 
the  only  living  things  were  snakes  and  lizards. 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO  DESERT     31 

On  the  other  side  of  the  plain,  two  or  three  miles 
from  a  high  wall  of  vermilion  cliffs,  we  stopped 
for  the  night  at  a  little  stone  rest-house,  built 
as  a  station  by  a  cow  outfit.  Here  there  were 
big  corrals,  and  a  pool  of  water  piped  down  by 
the  cow-men  from  a  spring  many  miles  distant. 
On  the  sand  grew  the  usual  desert  plants,  and 
on  some  of  the  ridges  a  sparse  growth  of  grass, 
sufficient  for  the  night  feed  of  the  hardy  horses. 
The  little  stone  house  and  the  corrals  stood 
bare  and  desolate  on  the  empty  plain.  Soon 
after  we  reached  them  a  sand-storm  rose  and 
blew  so  violently  that  we  took  refuge  inside  the 
house.  Then  the  wind  died  down;  and  as  the 
sun  sank  toward  the  horizon  we  sauntered  off 
through  the  hot,  still  evening.  There  were 
many  sidewinder  rattlesnakes.  We  killed  several 
of  the  gray,  flat-headed,  venomous  things;  as 
we  slept  on  the  ground  outside  the  house,  un 
der  the  open  sky,  we  were  glad  to  kill  as  many 
as  possible,  for  they  sometimes  crawl  into  a 
sleeper's  blankets.  Except  this  baleful  life,  there 
was  little  save  the  sand  and  the  harsh,  scanty 
vegetation.  Across  the  lonely  wastes  the  sun 
went  down.  The  sharply  channelled  cliffs  turned 
crimson  in  the  dying  light;  all  the  heavens 
flamed  ruby  red,  and  faded  to  a  hundred  dim 
hues  of  opal,  beryl  and  amber,  pale  turquoise 


32       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  delicate  emerald;  and  then  night  fell  and 
darkness  shrouded  the  desert. 

Next  morning  the  horse-wranglers,  Nick  and 
Quentin,  were  off  before  dawn  to  bring  in  the 
saddle  and  pack  animals;  the  sun  rose  in  burn 
ing  glory,  and  through  the  breathless  heat  we 
drove  the  pack-train  before  us  toward  the 
crossing  of  the  Colorado.  Hour  after  hour  we 
plodded  ahead.  The  cliff  line  bent  back  at  an 
angle,  and  we  followed  into  the  valley  of  the 
Colorado.  The  trail  edged  in  toward  the  high 
cliffs  as  they  gradually  drew  toward  the  river. 
At  last  it  followed  along  the  base  of  the  frown 
ing  rock  masses.  Far  off  on  our  right  lay  the 
Colorado;  on  its  opposite  side  the  broad  river 
valley  was  hemmed  in  by  another  line  of  cliffs, 
at  whose  foot  we  were  to  travel  for  two  days 
after  crossing  the  river. 

The  landscape  had  become  one  of  incredible 
wildness,  of  tremendous  and  desolate  majesty. 
No  one  could  paint  or  describe  it  save  one  of 
the  great  masters  of  imaginative  art  or  litera 
ture  —  a  Turner  or  Browning  or  Poe.  The 
sullen  rock  walls  towered  hundreds  of  feet  aloft, 
with  something  about  their  grim  savagery  that 
suggested  both  the  terrible  and  the  grotesque. 
All  life  was  absent,  both  from  them  and  from 
the  fantastic  barrenness  of  the  bowlder-strewn 


ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT     33 

land  at  their  bases.  The  ground  was  burned 
out  or  washed  bare.  In  one  place  a  little  stream 
trickled  forth  at  the  bottom  of  a  ravine,  but 
even  here  no  grass  grew  -  -  only  little  clusters  of 
a  coarse  weed  with  flaring  white  flowers  that 
looked  as  if  it  throve  on  poisoned  soil.  In  the 
still  heat  "we  saw  the  silences  move  by  and 
beckon."  The  cliffs  were  channelled  into  myriad 
forms  —  battlements,  spires,  pillars,  buttressed 
towers,  flying  arches ;  they  looked  like  the  ruined 
castles  and  temples  of  the  monstrous  devil- 
deities  of  some  vanished  race.  All  were  ruins  — 
ruins  vaster  than  those  of  any  structures  ever 
reared  by  the  hands  of  men  —  as  if  some  magic 
city,  built  by  warlocks  and  sorcerers,  had  been 
wrecked  by  the  wrath  of  the  elder  gods.  Evil 
dwelt  in  the  silent  places;  from  battlement  to 
lonely  battlement  fiends'  voices  might  have 
raved;  in  the  utter  desolation  of  each  empty 
valley  the  squat  blind  tower  might  have  stood, 
and  giants  lolled  at  length  to  see  the  death  of  a 
soul  at  bay. 

As  the  afternoon  wore  on,  storm  boded  in 
the  south.  The  day  grew  sombre;  to  the  desola 
tion  of  the  blinding  light  succeeded  the  desola 
tion  of  utter  gloom.  The  echoes  of  the  thunder 
rolled  among  the  crags,  and  lightning  jagged 
the  darkness.  The  heavens  burst,  and  the 


34       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

downpour  drove  in  our  faces;  then  through 
cloud  rifts  the  sun's  beams  shone  again  and  we 
looked  on  "the  shining  race  of  rain  whose  hair 
a  great  wind  scattereth." 

At  Lee's  Ferry,  once  the  home  of  the  dark 
leader  of  the  Danites,  the  cliffs,  a  medley  of 
bold  colors  and  striking  forms,  come  close  to 
the  river's  brink  on  either  side;  but  at  this  one 
point  there  is  a  break  in  the  canyon  walls  and 
a  ferry  can  be  run.  A  stream  flowrs  into  the 
river  from  the  north.  By  it  there  is  a  house, 
and  the  miracle  of  water  has  done  its  work. 
Under  irrigation,  there  are  fields  of  corn  and 
alfalfa,  groves  of  fruit-trees,  and  gardens;  a 
splash  of  fresh,  cool  green  in  the  harsh  waste. 

South  of  the  ferry  we  found  two  mule-wagons, 
sent  for  us  by  Mr.  Hubbell,  of  Ganado,  to  whose 
thoughtful  kindness  we  owed  much.  One  was 
driven  by  a  Mexican,  Francisco  Marquez;  the 
other,  the  smaller  one,  by  a  Navajo  Indian, 
Loko,  who  acted  as  cook;  both  were  capital 
men,  and  we  lived  in  much  comfort  while  with 
them.  A  Navajo  policeman  accompanied  us  as 
guide,  for  we  were  now  in  the  great  Navajo 
reservation.  A  Navajo  brought  us  a  sheep  for 
sale,  and  we  held  a  feast. 

For  two  days  we  drove  southward  through  the 
desert  country,  along  the  foot  of  a  range  of  red 


ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT     35 

cliffs.  In  places  the  sand  was  heavy;  in  others 
the  ground  was  hard,  and  the  teams  made  good 
progress.  There  were  little  water-holes,  usually 
more  or  less  alkaline,  ten  or  fifteen  miles  apart. 
At  these  the  Navajos  were  watering  their  big 
flocks  of  sheep  and  goats,  their  horses  and  don 
keys,  and  their  few  cattle.  They  are  very  inter 
esting  Indians.  They  live  scattered  out,  each 
family  by  itself,  or  two  or  three  families  together; 
not  in  villages,  like  their  neighbors  the  Hopis. 
They  are  pastoral  Indians,  but  they  are  agri 
culturists  also,  as  far  as  the  desert  permits. 
Here  and  there,  where  there  was  a  little  seepage 
of  water,  we  saw  their  meagre  fields  of  corn, 
beans,  squashes,  and  melons.  All  were  mounted ; 
the  men  usually  on  horses,  the  women  and  chil 
dren  often  on  donkeys.  They  were  clad  in  white 
man's  garb;  at  least  the  men  wore  shirts  and 
trousers  and  the  women  bodices  and  skirts;  but 
the  shirts  were  often  green  or  red  or  saffron  or 
bright  blue;  their  long  hair  was  knotted  at  the 
back  of  the  head,  and  they  usually  wore  moc 
casins.  The  well-to-do  carried  much  jewelry  of 
their  own  make.  They  wore  earrings  and  neck 
laces  of  turquoise;  turquoises  were  set  in  their 
many  silver  ornaments;  and  they  wore  buttons 
and  bangles  of  silver,  for  they  are  cunning 
silversmiths,  as  well  as  weavers  of  the  famous 


36       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

Navajo  blankets.  Although  they  practise  polyg 
amy,  and  divorce  is  easy,  their  women  are 
usually  well  treated;  and  we  saw  evidences  of 
courtesy  and  consideration  not  too  common  even 
among  civilized  people.  At  one  halt  a  woman 
on  a  donkey,  with  a  little  boy  behind  her,  rode 
up  to  the  wagon.  We  gave  her  and  the  boy  food. 
Later  when  a  Navajo  man  came  up,  she  quietly 
handed  him  a  couple  of  delicacies.  So  far  there 
was  nothing  of  note;  but  the  man  equally 
quietly  and  with  a  slight  smile  of  evident  grati 
tude  and  appreciation  stretched  out  his  hand; 
and  for  a  moment  they  stood  with  clasped 
hands,  both  pleased,  one  with  the  courtesy,  and 
the  other  with  the  way  the  courtesy  had  been 
received.  Both  were  tattered  beings  on  don 
keys;  but  it  made  a  pleasant  picture. 

These  are  as  a  whole  good  Indians  —  al 
though  some  are  very  bad,  and  should  be  han 
dled  rigorously.  Most  of  them  work  hard,  and 
wring  a  reluctant  living  from  the  desert;  often 
their  houses  are  miles  from  water,  and  they  use 
it  sparingly.  They  live  on  a  reservation  in  which 
many  acres  are  necessary  to  support  life;  I  do 
not  believe  that  at  present  they  ought  to  be 
allotted  land  in  severalty,  and  their  whole  res 
ervation  should  be  kept  for  them,  if  only  they 
can  be  brought  forward  fast  enough  in  stock- 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO  DESERT     37 

raising  and  agriculture  to  use  it;  for  with  In 
dians  and  white  men  alike  it  is  use  which  should 
determine  occupancy  of  the  soil.  The  Navajos 
have  made  progress  of  a  real  type,  and  stand 
far  above  mere  savagery ;  and  everything  possi 
ble  should  be  done  to  help  them  help  them 
selves,  to  teach  them  English,  and,  above  all, 
to  teach  them  how  to  be  better  stock-raisers 
and  food-growers  —  as  well  as  smiths  and 
weavers  —  in  their  desert  home.  The  whites 
have  treated  these  Indians  well.  They  bene 
fited  by  the  coming  of  the  Spaniards;  they  have 
benefited  more  by  the  coming  of  our  own  people. 
For  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  the  lawless 
individuals  among  them  have  done  much  more 
wrong  (including  murder)  to  the  whites  than  has 
been  done  to  them  by  lawless  whites.  The  law 
less  Indians  are  the  worst  menace  to  the  others 
among  the  Navajos  and  Utes;  and  very  serious 
harm  has  been  done  by  well-meaning  Eastern 
philanthropists  who  have  encouraged  and  pro 
tected  these  criminals.  I  have  known  some 
startling  cases  of  this  kind. 

During  the  second  day  of  our  southward 
journey  the  Painted  Desert,  in  gaudy  desola 
tion,  lay  far  to  our  right;  and  we  crossed  tongues 
and  patches  of  the  queer  formation,  with  its 
hard,  bright  colors.  Red  and  purple,  green 


38       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  bluish,  orange  and  gray  and  umber  brown, 
the  streaked  and  splashed  clays  and  marls  had 
been  carved  by  wind  and  weather  into  a  thou 
sand  outlandish  forms.  Funnel-shaped  sand 
storms  moved  across  the  waste.  We  climbed 
gradually  upward  to  the  top  of  the  mesa.  The 
yellow  sand  grew  heavier  and  deeper.  There 
were  occasional  short  streams  from  springs; 
but  they  ran  in  deep  gullies,  with  nothing  to 
tell  of  their  presence;  never  a  tree  near  by  and 
hardly  a  bush  or  a  tuft  of  grass,  unless  planted 
and  tended  by  man.  We  passed  the  stone  walls 
of  an  abandoned  trading-post.  The  desert  had 
claimed  its  own.  The  ruins  lay  close  to  a  low 
range  of  cliffs;  the  white  sand,  dazzling  under 
the  sun,  had  drifted  everywhere;  there  was  not 
a  plant,  not  a  green  thing  in  sight  —  nothing 
but  the  parched  and  burning  lifelessness  of  rock 
and  sand.  This  northern  Arizona  desert  was 
less  attractive  than  the  southern  desert  along 
the  road  to  the  Roosevelt  Dam  and  near  Mesa, 
for  instance;  for  in  the  south  the  cactus  growth 
is  infinitely  varied  in  size  and  in  fantastic 
shape. 

In  the  late  afternoon  we  reached  Tuba,  with 
its  Indian  school  and  its  trader's  store.  Tuba 
was  once  a  Mormon  settlement,  the  Mormons 
having  been  invited  thither  by  the  people  of  a 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO  DESERT     39 

near-by  Hopi  village  —  which  we  visited  —  be 
cause  the  Hopis  wished  protection  from  hostile 
Indian  foes.  As  usual,  the  Mormon  settlers  had 
planted  and  cared  for  many  trees  —  cotton- 
woods,  poplars,  almond-trees,  and  flowering 
acacias  —  and  the  green  shade  was  doubly  at 
tractive  in  that  sandy  desert.  We  were  most 
hospitably  received,  especially  by  the  school 
superintendent,  and  also  by  the  trader.  They 
showed  us  every  courtesy.  Mentioning  the 
abandoned  trading-post  in  the  desert  to  the 
wife  of  the  trader,  she  told  us  that  it  was  there 
she  had  gone  as  a  bride.  The  women  who  live 
in  the  outposts  of  civilization  have  brave  souls ! 
We  rested  the  horses  for  a  day,  and  then 
started  northward,  toward  the  trading-station 
of  John  Wetherill,  near  Navajo  Mountain  and 
the  Natural  Bridge.  The  first  day's  travel  was 
through  heavy  sand  and  very  tiring  to  the 
teams.  Late  in  the  afternoon  we  came  to  an 
outlying  trader's  store,  on  a  sandy  hillside.  In 
the  plain  below,  where  not  a  blade  of  grass 
grew,  were  two  or  three  permanent  pools;  and 
toward  these  the  flocks  of  the  Navajos  were 
hurrying,  from  every  quarter,  with  their  herds 
men.  The  sight  was  curiously  suggestive  of 
the  sights  I  so  often  saw  in  Africa,  when  the 
Masai  and  Samburu  herdsmen  brought  their 


40       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

flocks  to  water.  On  we  went,  not  halting  until 
nine  in  the  evening. 

All  next  day  we  travelled  through  a  parched, 
monotonous  landscape,  now  and  then  meeting 
Navajos  with  their  flocks  and  herds,  and  pass 
ing  by  an  occasional  Navajo  "hogan,"  or  hovel- 
like  house,  with  its  rough  corral  near  by.  To 
ward  evening  we  struck  into  Marsh  Pass,  and 
camped  at  the  summit.  Here  we  were  again 
among  the  mountains;  and  the  great  gorge 
was  wonderfully  picturesque  —  well  worth  a 
visit  from  any  landscape-lover,  were  there  not 
so  many  sights  still  more  wonderful  in  the  im 
mediate  neighborhood.  The  lower  rock  masses 
were  orange-hued,  and  above  them  rose  red 
battlements  of  cliff;  where  the  former  broke 
into  sheer  sides  there  were  old  houses  of  the 
cliff-dwellers,  carved  in  the  living  rock.  The 
half -moon  hung  high  overhead;  the  scene  was 
wild  and  lovely,  when  we  strolled  away  from 
the  camp-fire  among  the  scattered  cedars  and 
pinyons  through  the  cool,  still  night. 

Next  morning  we  journeyed  on,  and  in  the  fore 
noon  we  reached  Kayentay,  where  John  Weth- 
erill,  the  guide  and  Indian  trader,  lives.  We  had 
been  travelling  over  a  bare  table-land,  through 
surroundings  utterly  desolate;  and  with  star 
tling  suddenness,  as  we  dropped  over  the  edge, 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO   DESERT     41 

we  came  on  the  group  of  houses --the  store, 
the  attractive  house  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wetherill, 
and  several  other  buildings.  Our  new  friends 
were  the  kindest  and  most  hospitable  of  hosts, 
and  their  house  was  a  delight  to  every  sense: 
clean,  comfortable,  with  its  bath  and  running 
water,  its  rugs  and  books,  its  desks,  cupboards, 
couches  and  chairs,  and  the  excellent  taste  of 
its  Navajo  ornamentation.  Here  we  parted 
with  our  two  wagons,  and  again  took  to  pack- 
trains;  we  had  already  grown  attached  to 
Francisco  and  Loko,  and  felt  sorry  to  say  good- 
by  to  them. 

On  August  10,  under  WetherilPs  guidance,  we 
started  for  the  Natural  Bridge,  seven  of  us,  all 
told,  with  five  pack-horses.  We  travelled  light, 
with  no  tentage,  and  when  it  rained  at  night  we 
curled  up  in  our  bedding  under  our  slickers.  I 
was  treated  as  "the  Colonel,"  and  did  nothing 
but  look  after  my  own  horse  and  bedding,  and 
usually  not  even  this  much;  but  every  one  else 
in  the  outfit  worked  !  On  the  two  days  spent  in 
actually  getting  into  and  out  of  the  very  difficult 
country  around  the  Bridge  itself  we  cut  down  our 
luggage  still  further,  taking  the  necessary  food 
in  the  most  portable  form,  and,  as  regards  bed 
ding,  trusting,  in  cowboy  fashion,  to  our  slickers 
and  horse  blankets.  But  we  were  comfortable, 


42       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  the  work  was  just  hard  enough  to  keep  us 
in  fine  trim. 

We  began  by  retracing  our  steps  to  the  head 
of  Marsh  Pass  and  turning  westward  up  Laguna 
Canyon.  This  was  so  named  because  it  con 
tained  pools  of  water  when,  half  a  century  ago, 
Kit  Carson,  the  type  of  all  that  was  best  among 
the  old-style  mountain  man  and  plainsman, 
traversed  it  during  one  of  his  successful  Indian 
campaigns.  The  story  of  the  American  ad 
vance  through  the  Southwest  is  filled  with 
feats  of  heroism.  Yet,  taking  into  account 
the  means  of  doing  the  work,  even  greater 
dangers  were  fronted,  even  more  severe  hard 
ships  endured,  and  even  more  striking  triumphs 
achieved  by  the  soldiers  and  priests  who  three 
centuries  previously,  during  Spain's  brief  sun 
burst  of  glory,  first  broke  through  the  portals 
of  the  thirst-guarded,  Indian-haunted  desert. 

At  noon  we  halted  in  a  side-canyon,  at  the 
foot  of  a  mighty  cliff,  where  there  were  ruins 
of  a  big  village  of  cliff-dwellers.  The  cliff  was 
of  the  form  so  common  in  this  type  of  rock 
formation.  It  was  not  merely  sheer,  but  re 
entrant,  making  a  huge,  arched,  shallow  cave, 
several  hundred  feet  high,  and  at  least  a  hun 
dred  —  perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty  -  -  feet  deep, 
the  overhang  being  enormous.  The  stone  houses 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO  DESERT     43 

of  the  village,  which  in  all  essentials  was  like 
a  Hopi  village  of  to-day,  were  plastered  against 
the  wall  in  stories,  each  resting  on  a  narrow 
ledge.  Long  poles  permitted  one  to  climb  from 
ledge  to  ledge,  and  gave  access,  through  the 
roofs,  to  the  more  inaccessible  houses.  The  im 
mense  size  of  the  cave  —  or  overhanging,  re 
entrant  cliff,  whichever  one  chooses  to  call  it  - 
dwarfed  the  houses,  so  that  they  looked  like 
toy  houses. 

There  were  many  similar,  although  smaller, 
villages  and  little  clusters  of  houses  among  the 
cliffs  of  this  tangle  of  canyons.  Once  the  cliff- 
dwellers  had  lived  in  numbers  in  this  neighbor 
hood,  sleeping  in  their  rock  aeries,  and  ven 
turing  into  the  valleys  only  to  cultivate  their 
small  patches  of  irrigated  land.  Generations 
had  passed  since  these  old  cliff-dwellers  had  been 
killed  or  expelled.  Compared  with  the  neigh 
boring  Indians,  they  had  already  made  a  long 
stride  in  cultural  advance  when  the  Spaniards 
arrived;  but  they  were  shrinking  back  before 
the  advance  of  the  more  savage  tribes.  Their 
history  should  teach  the  lesson  -  -  taught  by 
all  history  in  thousands  of  cases,  and  now  being 
taught  before  our  eyes  by  the  experience  of 
China,  but  being  taught  to  no  purpose  so  far 
as  concerns  those  ultra  peace  advocates  whose 


44       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

heads  are  even  softer  than  their  hearts --that 
the  industrious  race  of  advanced  culture  and 
peaceful  ideals  is  lost  unless  it  retains  the  power 
not  merely  for  defensive  but  for  offensive  ac 
tion,  when  itself  menaced  by  vigorous  and  ag 
gressive  foes. 

That  night,  having  ridden  only  some  twenty- 
five  miles,  we  camped  in  Bubbling  Spring  Val 
ley.  It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  a  wilder  or 
more  beautiful  spot;  if  in  the  Old  World,  the 
valley  would  surely  be  celebrated  in  song  and 
story;  here  it  is  one  among  many  others,  all 
equally  unknown.  We  camped  by  the  bubbling 
spring  of  pure  cold  water  from  which  it  derives 
its  name.  The  long,  winding  valley  was  carpeted 
with  emerald  green,  varied  by  wide  bands  and  rib 
bons  of  lilac,  where  the  tall  ranks  of  bee-blos 
soms,  haunted  by  humming-birds,  grew  thickly, 
often  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  at  a  stretch.  The 
valley  was  walled  in  by  towering  cliffs,  a  few  of 
them  sloping,  most  of  them  sheer-sided  or  with 
the  tops  overhanging;  and  there  were  isolated 
rock  domes  and  pinnacles.  As  everywhere  round 
about,  the  rocks  were  of  many  colors,  and  the 
colors  varied  from  hour  to  hour,  so  that  the 
hues  of  sunrise  differed  from  those  of  noonday, 
and  yet  again  from  the  long  lights  of  sunset. 
The  cliffs  seemed  orange  and  purple;  and  again 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO  DESERT     45 

they  seemed  vermilion  and  umber;  or  in  the  white 
glare  they  were  white  and  yellow  and  light  red. 

Our  routine  was  that  usual  when  travelling 
with  a  pack-train.  By  earliest  dawn  the  men 
whose  duties  were  to  wrangle  the  horses  and 
cook  had  scrambled  out  of  their  bedding;  and 
the  others  soon  followed  suit.  There  is  always 
much  work  with  a  pack-outfit,  and  there  are 
almost  always  some  animals  which  cause  trouble 
when  being  packed.  The  sun  was  well  up  be 
fore  we  started;  then  we  travelled  until  sunset, 
taking  out  a  couple  of  hours  to  let  the  hobbled 
horses  and  mules  rest  and  feed  at  noon. 

On  the  second  day  out  we  camped  not  far 
from  the  foot  of  Navajo  Mountain.  We  came 
across  several  Indians,  both  Navajos  and  Utes, 
guarding  their  flocks  and  herds;  and  we  passed 
by  several  of  their  flimsy  branch-built  summer 
houses,  and  their  mud,  stone,  and  log  winter 
houses;  and  by  their  roughly  fenced  fields  of 
corn  and  melons  watered  by  irrigation  ditches. 
Wetherill  hired  two  Indians,  a  Ute  and  a  Nav 
ajo,  to  go  with  us,  chiefly  to  relieve  us  of  the 
labor  of  looking  after  our  horses  at  night.  They 
were  pleasant-faced,  silent  men.  They  wore 
broad  hats,  shirts  and  waistcoats,  trousers,  and 
red  handkerchiefs  loosely  knotted  round  their 
necks;  except  for  their  moccasins,  a  feather  in 


46       A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

each  hat,  and  two  or  three  silver  ornaments, 
they  were  dressed  like  cowboys,  and  both 
picturesquely  and  appropriately.  Their  orna 
mented  saddles  were  of  Navajo  make. 

The  second  day's  march  \vas  long.  At  one 
point  we  dropped  into  and  climbed  out  of  a 
sheer-sided  canyon  some  twrelve  hundred  feet 
deep.  The  trail,  which  zigzagged  up  and  down 
the  rocky  walls,  had  been  made  by  the  Navajos. 
After  we  had  led  our  horses  down  into  the 
canyon,  and  were  lunching  by  a  spring,  we 
were  followed  by  several  Indians  driving  large 
flocks  of  goats  and  sheep.  They  came  down 
the  trail  at  a  good  rate,  many  of  them  riding 
instead  of  leading  their  horses.  One  rather 
comely  squaw  attracted  our  attention.  She 
was  riding  a  weedy,  limber-legged  brood-mare, 
followed  by  a  foal.  The  mare  did  not  look  as 
if  it  would  be  particularly  strong  even  on  the 
level;  yet  the  well-dressed  squaw,  holding  be 
fore  her  both  her  baby  and  her  long  sticks  for 
blanket-weaving,  and  with  behind  her  another 
child  and  a  small  roll  of  things  which  included  a 
black  umbrella,  ambled  down  among  the  broken 
rocks  with  entire  unconcern,  and  joked  cheerily 
with  us  as  she  passed. 

The  night  was  lovely,  and  the  moon,  nearly 
full,  softened  the  dry  harshness  of  the  land, 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO  DESERT     47 

while  Navajo  Mountain  loomed  up  under  it. 
When  we  rose,  we  saw  the  pale  dawn  turn  blood- 
red;  and  shortly  after  sunrise  we  started  for 
our  third  and  final  day's  journey  to  the  Bridge. 
For  some  ten  miles  the  track  was  an  ordinary 
rough  mountain  trail.  Then  we  left  all  our 
pack-animals  except  two  little  mules,  and  be 
gan  the  hard  part  of  our  trip.  From  this  point 
on  the  trail  was  that  followed  by  Wetherill  on 
his  various  trips  to  the  Bridge,  and  it  can  per 
haps  fairly  be  called  dangerous  in  two  or  three 
places,  at  least  for  horses.  Wetherill  has  been 
with  every  party  that  has  visited  the  Bridge 
from  the  time  of  its  discovery  by  white  men 
four  years  ago.  On  that  occasion  he  was  with 
two  parties,  their  guide  being  the  Ute  who  was 
at  this  time  with  us.  Mrs.  Wetherill  has  made 
an  extraordinarily  sympathetic  study  of  the 
Navajos  and  to  a  less  extent  of  the  Utes;  she 
knows,  and  feelingly  understands,  their  tradi 
tions  and  ways  of  thought,  and  speaks  their 
tongue  fluently;  and  it  was  she  who  first  got 
from  the  Indians  full  knowledge  of  the  Bridge. 
The  hard  trail  began  with  a  twenty  minutes' 
crossing  of  a  big  mountain  dome  of  bare  sheet 
rock.  Over  this  we  led  our  horses,  up,  down, 
and  along  the  sloping  sides,  which  fell  away 
into  cliffs  that  were  scores  and  even  hundreds 


48       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

of  feet  deep.  One  spot  was  rather  ticklish. 
We  led  the  horses  down  the  rounded  slope  to 
where  a  crack  or  shelf  six  or  eight  inches  broad 
appeared  and  went  off  level  to  the  right  for  some 
fifty  feet.  For  half  a  dozen  feet  before  we 
dropped  down  to  this  shelf  the  slope  was  steep 
enough  to  make  it  difficult  for  both  horses  and 
men  to  keep  their  footing  on  the  smooth  rock; 
there  was  nothing  whatever  to  hold  on  to,  and 
a  precipice  lay  underneath. 

On  we  went,  under  the  pitiless  sun,  through 
a  contorted  wilderness  of  scalped  peaks  and 
ranges,  barren  passes,  and  twisted  valleys  of 
sun-baked  clay.  We  worked  up  and  down 
steep  hill  slopes,  and  along  tilted  masses  of 
sheet-rock  ending  in  cliffs.  At  the  foot  of  one 
of  these  lay  the  bleached  skeleton  of  a  horse. 
It  was  one  which  Wetherill  had  ridden  on  one 
of  his  trips  to  the  Bridge.  The  horse  lost  his 
footing  on  the  slippery  slide  rock,  and  went  to 
his  death  over  the  cliff;  Wetherill  threw  himself 
out  of  the  saddle  and  just  managed  to  escape. 
The  last  four  miles  were  the  worst  of  all  for  the 
horses.  They  led  along  the  bottom  of  the 
Bridge  canyon.  It  was  covered  with  a  torrent- 
strewn  mass  of  smooth  rocks,  from  pebbles  to 
bowlders  of  a  ton's  weight.  It  was  a  marvel 
that  the  horses  got  down  without  breaking  their 


ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT     49 

legs;  and  the  poor  beasts  were  nearly  worn 
out. 

Huge  and  bare  the  immense  cliffs  towered, 
on  either  hand,  and  in  front  and  behind  as  the 
canyon  turned  right  and  left.  They  lifted 
straight  above  us  for  many  hundreds  of  feet. 
The  sunlight  lingered  on  their  tops;  far  below, 
we  made  our  way  like  pygmies  through  the 
gloom  of  the  great  gorge.  As  we  neared  the 
Bridge  the  horse  trail  led  up  to  one  side,  and 
along  it  the  Indians  drove  the  horses ;  we  walked 
at  the  bottom  of  the  canyon  so  as  to  see  the 
Bridge  first  from  below  and  realize  its  true  size; 
for  from  above  it  is  dwarfed  by  the  immense 
mountain  masses  surrounding  it. 

At  last  we  turned  a  corner,  and  the  tremen 
dous  arch  of  the  Bridge  rose  in  front  of  us.  It 
is  surely  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  It 
is  a  triumphal  arch  rather  than  a  bridge,  and 
spans  the  torrent  bed  in  a  majesty  never  shared 
by  any  arch  ever  reared  by  the  mightiest  con 
querors  among  the  nations  of  mankind.  At 
this  point  there  were  deep  pools  in  the  rock  bed 
of  the  canyon,  with  overhanging  shelves  under 
which  grew  beautiful  ferns  and  hanging  plants. 
Hot  and  tired,  we  greeted  the  chance  for  a  bath, 
and  as  I  floated  on  my  back  in  the  water  the 
Bridge  towered  above  me.  Then  we  made 


50       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

camp.  We  built  a  blazing  fire  under  one  of 
the  giant  buttresses  of  the  arch,  and  the  leaping 
flame  brought  it  momentarily  into  sudden  re 
lief.  We  white  men  talked  and  laughed  by  the 
fire,  and  the  two  silent  Indians  sat  by  and  lis 
tened  to  us.  The  night  was  cloudless.  The 
round  moon  rose  under  the  arch  and  flooded 
the  cliffs  behind  us  with  her  radiance.  After 
she  passed  behind  the  mountains  the  heavens 
were  still  brilliant  with  starlight,  and  whenever 
I  waked  I  turned  and  gazed  at  the  loom  of  the 
mighty  arch  against  the  clear  night  sky. 

Next  morning  early  we  started  on  our  toil 
some  return  trip.  The  pony  trail  led  under 
the  arch.  Along  this  the  Ute  drove  our  pack- 
mules,  and  as  I  followed  him  I  noticed  that 
the  Navajo  rode  around  outside.  His  creed 
bade  him  never  pass  under  an  arch,  for  the  arch 
is  the  sign  of  the  rainbow,  the  sign  of  the  sun's 
course  over  the  earth,  and  to  the  Navajo  it  is 
sacred.  This  great  natural  bridge,  so  recently 
"discovered"  by  white  men,  has  for  ages  been 
known  to  the  Indians.  Near  it,  against  the 
rock  walls  of  the  canyon,  we  saw  the  crum 
bling  remains  of  some  cliff-dwellings,  and  almost 
under  it  there  is  what  appears  to  be  the  ruin  of 
a  very  ancient  shrine. 

We  travelled  steadily  at  a  good  gait,  and  we 


ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT     51 

feasted  on  a  sheep  we  bought  from  a  band  of 
Utes.  Early  on  the  afternoon  of  the  sixth  day 
of  our  absence  we  again  rode  our  weary  horses 
over  the  hill  slope  down  to  the  store  at  Kayentay, 
and  glad  we  were  to  see  the  comfortable  ranch 
buildings. 

Many  Navajos  were  continually  visiting  the 
store.  It  seems  a  queer  thing  to  say,  but  I 
really  believe  Kayentay  would  be  an  excellent 
place  for  a  summer  school  of  archaeology  and 
ethnology.  There  are  many  old  cliff-dwellings, 
some  of  large  size  and  peculiar  interest,  in  the 
neighborhood;  and  the  Navajos  of  this  region 
themselves,  not  to  mention  the  village-dwelling 
Hopis,  are  Indians  who  will  repay  the  most 
careful  study,  whether  of  language,  religion, 
or  ordinary  customs  and  culture.  As  always 
when  I  have  seen  Indians  in  their  homes,  in 
mass,  I  was  struck  by  the  wide  cultural  and  in 
tellectual  difference  among  the  different  tribes, 
as  well  as  among  the  different  individuals  of 
each  tribe,  and  both  by  the  great  possibilities 
for  their  improvement  and  by  the  need  of  show 
ing  common  sense  even  more  than  good  inten 
tions  if  this  improvement  is  to  be  achieved. 
Some  Indians  can  hardly  be  moved  forward 
at  all.  Some  can  be  moved  forward  both  fast 
and  far.  To  let  them  entirely  alone  usually 


52       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

means  their  ruin.  To  interfere  with  them  fool 
ishly,  with  whatever  good  intentions,  and  to  try 
to  move  all  of  them  forward  in  a  mass,  with 
a  jump,  means  their  ruin.  A  few  individuals 
in  every  tribe,  and  most  of  the  individuals 
in  some  tribes,  can  move  very  far  forward  at 
once;  the  non-reservation  schools  do  excellently 
for  these.  Most  of  them  need  to  be  advanced 
by  degrees;  there  must  be  a  half-way  house  at 
which  they  can  halt,  or  they  may  never  reach 
their  final  destination  and  stand  on  a  level  with 
the  white  man. 

The  Navajos  have  made  long  strides  in  ad 
vance  during  the  last  fifty  years,  thanks  to  the 
presence  of  the  white  men  in  their  neighborhood. 
Many  decent  men  have  helped  them  —  soldiers, 
agents,  missionaries,  traders;  and  the  help  has 
quite  as  often  been  given  unconsciously  as  con 
sciously;  and  some  of  the  most  conscientious 
efforts  to  help  them  have  flatly  failed.  The 
missionaries  have  made  comparatively  few  con 
verts;  but  many  of  the  missionaries  have  added 
much  to  the  influences  telling  for  the  gradual 
uplift  of  the  tribe.  Outside  benevolent  societies 
have  done  some  good  work  at  times,  but  have 
been  mischievous  influences  when  guided  by 
ignorance  and  sentimentality  —  a  notable  in 
stance  on  this  Navajo  reservation  is  given  by 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO   DESERT     53 

Mr.  Leupp  in  his  book  "The  Indian  and  His 
Problem."  Agents  and  other  government  of 
ficials,  when  of  the  best  type,  have  done  most 
good,  and  when  not  of  the  right  type  have  done 
most  evil;  and  they  have  never  done  any  good 
at  all  when  they  have  been  afraid  of  the  Indians 
or  have  hesitated  relentlessly  to  punish  Indian 
wrong-doers,  even  if  these  wrong-doers  were 
supported  by  some  unwise  missionaries  or  ill- 
advised  Eastern  benevolent  societies.  The  trad 
ers  of  the  right  type  have  rendered  genuine, 
and  ill-appreciated,  service,  and  their  stores  and 
houses  are  centres  of  civilizing  influence. 

Good  work  can  be  done,  and  has  been  done,  at 
the  schools.  Wherever  the  effort  is  to  jump  the 
ordinary  Indian  too  far  ahead  and  yet  send 
him  back  to  the  reservation,  the  result  is  usually 
failure.  To  be  useful  the  steps  for  the  ordinary 
boy  or  girl,  in  any  save  the  most  advanced 
tribes,  must  normally  be  gradual.  Enough 
English  should  be  taught  to  enable  such  a  boy 
or  girl  to  read,  write,  and  cipher  so  as  not  to 
be  cheated  in  ordinary  commercial  transactions. 
Outside  of  this  the  training  should  be  indus 
trial,  and,  among  the  Navajos,  it  should  be 
the  kind  of  industrial  training  which  shall  avail 
in  the  home  cabins  and  in  tending  flocks  and  herds 
and  irrigated  fields.  The  Indian  should  be  en- 


54       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

couraged  to  build  a  better  house;  but  the 
house  must  not  be  too  different  from  his  pres 
ent  dwelling,  or  he  will,  as  a  rule,  neither  build 
it  nor  live  in  it.  The  boy  should  be  taught 
what  will  be  of  actual  use  to  him  among  his 
fellows,  and  not  what  might  be  of  use  to  a 
skilled  mechanic  in  a  big  city,  who  can  work 
only  with  first-class  appliances;  and  the  agency 
farmer  should  strive  steadily  to  teach  the  young 
men  out  in  the  field  how  to  better  their  stock 
and  practically  to  increase  the  yield  of  their 
rough  agriculture.  The  girl  should  be  taught 
domestic  science,  not  as  it  would  be  practised 
in  a  first-class  hotel  or  a  wealthy  private  home, 
but  as  she  must  practise  it  in  a  hut  with  no 
conveniences,  and  with  intervals  of  sheep-herd 
ing.  If  the  boy  and  girl  are  not  so  taught,  their 
after  lives  will  normally  be  worthless  both  to 
themselves  and  to  others.  If  they  are  so  taught, 
they  will  normally  themselves  rise  and  will  be 
the  most  effective  of  home  missionaries  for 
their  tribe. 

In  Horace  Greeley's  "  Overland  Journey," 
published  more  than  half  a  century  ago,  there 
are  words  of  sound  wisdom  on  this  subject. 
Said  Greeley  (I  condense):  "In  future  efforts 
to  improve  the  condition  of  the  Indians  the 
women  should  be  specially  regarded  and  ap- 


ACROSS  THE   NAVAJO  DESERT     55 

pealed  to.  A  conscientious,  humane,  capable 
Christian  trader,  with  a  wife  thoroughly  skilled 
in  household  manufactures  and  handicrafts, 
each  speaking  the  language  of  the  tribe  with 
whom  they  take  up  their  residence,  can  do 
[incalculable]  good.  Let  them  keep  and  sell 
whatever  articles  are  adapted  to  the  Indians' 
needs  .  .  .  and  maintain  an  industrial  school 
for  Indian  women  and  children,  which,  though 
primarily  industrial,  should  impart  intellectual 
and  religious  instruction  also,  wisely  adapted 
in  character  and  season  to  the  needs  of  the 
pupils.  .  .  .  Such  an  enterprise  would  grad 
ually"  [the  italics  here  are  mine]  "mould  a  gen 
eration  after  its  own  spirit.  .  .  .  The  Indian 
likes  bread  as  well  as  the  white;  he  must  be 
taught  to  prefer  the  toil  of  producing  it  to  the 
privation  of  lacking  it."  Mrs.  Wetherill  is  do 
ing,  and  striving  to  do,  much  more  than  Horace 
Greeley  held  up  as  an  ideal.  One  of  her  hopes 
is  to  establish  a  "model  hogan,"  an  Indian 
home,  both  advanced  and  possible  for  the  Nav- 
ajos  now  to  live  up  to  —  a  half-way  house  on 
the  road  to  higher  civilization,  a  house  in  which, 
for  instance,  the  Indian  girl  will  be  taught  to 
wash  in  a  tub  with  a  pail  of  water  heated  at 
the  fire;  it  is  utterly  useless  to  teach  her  to 
wash  in  a  laundry  with  steam  and  cement  bath- 


56       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

tubs  and  expect  her  to  apply  this  knowledge  on 
a  reservation.  I  wish  some  admirer  of  Horace 
Greeley  and  friend  of  the  Indian  would  help 
Mrs.  Wetherill  establish  her  half-way  house. 

Mrs.  Wetherill  was  not  only  versed  in 
archaeological  lore  concerning  ruins  and  the 
like,  she  was  also  versed  in  the  yet  stranger 
and  more  interesting  archaeology  of  the  In 
dian's  own  mind  and  soul.  There  have  of 
recent  years  been  some  admirable  books  pub 
lished  on  the  phase  of  Indian  life  which  is  now, 
after  so  many  tens  of  thousands  of  years, 
rapidly  drawing  to  a  close.  There  is  the  ex 
traordinary,  the  monumental  work  of  Mr.  E. 
S.  Curtis,  whose  photographs  are  not  merely 
photographs,  but  pictures  of  the  highest  value; 
the  capital  volume  by  Miss  Natalie  Curtis;  and 
others.  If  Mrs.  Wetherill  could  be  persuaded 
to  write  on  the  mythology  of  the  Navajos,  and 
also  on  their  present-day  psychology  -  -  by  which 
somewhat  magniloquent  term  I  mean  their  pres 
ent  ways  and  habits  of  thought  —  she  would 
render  an  invaluable  service.  She  not  only 
knows  their  language;  she  knows  their  minds; 
she  has  the  keenest  sympathy  not  only  with 
their  bodily  needs,  but  with  their  mental  and 
spiritual  processes;  and  she  is  not  in  the  least 
afraid  of  them  or  sentimental  about  them  when 


ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT     57 

they  do  wrong.  They  trust  her  so  fully  that 
they  will  speak  to  her  without  reserve  about 
those  intimate  things  of  the  soul  which  they 
will  never  even  hint  at  if  they  suspect  want  of 
sympathy  or  fear  ridicule.  She  has  collected 
some  absorbingly  interesting  reproductions  of 
the  Navajo  sand  drawings,  picture  representa 
tions  of  the  old  mythological  tales;  they  would 
be  almost  worthless  unless  she  wrote  out  the 
interpretation,  told  her  by  the  medicine-man, 
for  the  hieroglyphics  themselves  would  be 
meaningless  without  such  translation.  Accord 
ing  to  their  own  creed,  the  Navajos  are  very 
devout,  and  pray  continually  to  the  gods  of 
their  belief.  Some  of  these  prayers  are  very 
beautiful;  others  differ  but  little  from  forms  of 
mere  devil-worship,  of  propitiation  of  the  pow 
ers  of  possible  evil.  Mrs.  Wetherill  was  good 
enough  to  write  out  for  me,  in  the  original  and 
in  English  translation,  a  prayer  of  each  type  - 
a  prayer  to  the  God  of  the  Dawn  and  the  God 
dess  of  Evening  Light,  and  a  prayer  to  the  great 
Spirit  Bear.  They  run  as  follows: 

PRAYER  TO  THE  DAWN 

"Hi-yol-cank  sil-kin  Natany, 
Tee  gee  hozhone  nas-shad, 
Sit-sigie  hozhone  nas-shad 
She-kayge  hozhone  nas-shad, 


58       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

She-yage  hozhone  nas-shad, 
She-kigee  hozhone  nas-shad, 
She-now  also  hozhone  nas-shad. 

"  San-naga,  Toddetenie  Huskie  be-kay, 

hozhone  nas-shad 
Na-da-cleas,  gekin,  Natany, 
Tes-gee  hozhone  nas-shad 
She-kayge  hozhone  nas-shad, 
She-kige  hozhone  nas-shad 
She-yage  hozhone  nas-shad 
She-now  also  hozhone  nas-shad, 

"Hozhone  nas  clee,  hozhone  nas  clee, 
Hozhone  nas  clee,  hozhone  nas  clee." 

PRAYER  TO  THE  DAWN  (TRANSLATION) 

"Dawn,  beautiful  dawn,  the  Chief, 
This  day,  let  it  be  well  with  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  before  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  behind  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  beneath  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  above  me  as  I  go; 
Let  all  I  see  be  well  as  I  go. 

"Everlasting,  like  unto  the  Pollen  Boy; 
Goddess  of  the  Evening,  the  beautiful  Chieftess, 
This  day,  let  it  be  well  with  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  before  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  behind  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  beneath  me  as  I  go; 
Let  it  be  well  above  me  as  I  go; 
Let  all  I  see  be  well  as  I  go. 

"Now  all  is  well,  now  all  is  well, 
Now  all  is  well,  now  all  is  well." 


ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT     59 

(The  Navajos  believe  in  repeating  a  prayer, 
both  in  anticipatory  and  in  realized  form,  four 
times,  being  firm  in  the  faith  that  an  adjura 
tion  four  times  repeated  will  bring  the  results 
they  desire;  the  Pollen  Boy  is  the  God  of  Fer 
tilization  of  the  Flowers.) 

PRAYER  TO  THE  BIG  BLACK  BEAR 

"  Shush-et-so-dilth-kilth 

Pash  dilth-kilth  ne-kay  ba-she-che-un-de-de-talth ; 
Pash  dilth-kilth  ne-escla  ba  she  chee  un-de-de-talth; 
Pash  dilth-kilth  ne-ea  ba  she  chee  un-de-de-talth; 
Pash  dilth-kilth  ne-cha  ba  she  chee  un-de-de-talth; 
Ba  ne  un-ne-ga  ut-sen-el-clish;  net  saw  now-o-tilth  a 
Sit  saw  now-o-tilth  go-ud-dish-nilth; 
Ba  sit  saw  ne-egay  go-ud-dish-nilth; 
Ne  change  nis-salth  dodo  ne; 
Ne  change  nis-salth  do-ut-saw-daw; 
Ne  change  nis-salth  ta-de-tenie  nus-cleango-ud-is-nilth; 
es-ze,  es-ze,  es-ze,  es-ze." 

PRAYER  TO  THE  BIG  BLACK  BEAR  (TRANSLATION) 

"Big  Black  Bear, 

With  your  black  moccasins,  like  unto  a  knife,  stand  be 
tween  me  and  danger; 

With  your  black  leggins,  like  unto  a  knife,  stand  be 
tween  me  and  danger ; 

With  your  black  shirt,  like  unto  a  knife,  stand  between 
me  and  danger, 

With  your  black  hat,  like  unto  a  knife,  stand  between 
me  and  danger; 

With  your  charm  send  the  lightning  around  you  and 
around  me; 


60       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

By  my  charm  tell  the  evil  dream  to  leave  me; 
Let  the  evil  dream  not  come  true; 
Give  me  medicine  to  dispel  the  evil  dream; 
The  evil  has  missed  me,  the  evil  has  missed  me,  the  evil 
has  missed  me,  the  evil  has  missed  me." 

(The  fourfold  repetition  of  "the  evil  has 
missed  me"  is  held  to  insure  the  accomplish 
ment  in  the  future  of  what  the  prayer  asserts 
of  the  past.  Instead  of  "hat"  we  could  say 
"helmet,"  as  the  Navajos  once  wore  a  black 
buckskin  helmet;  and  the  knife  was  of  black 
flint.  Black  was  the  war  color.  This  prayer 
was  to  ward  off  the  effect  of  a  bad  dream.) 

On  August  17,  we  left  Wetherill's  with  our 
pack-train,  for  a  three  days'  trip  across  the 
Black  Mesa  to  Walpi,  where  we  were  to  wit 
ness  the  snake-dance  of  the  Hopis.  The  desert 
valley  where  Kayentay  stands  is  bounded  on 
the  south  by  a  high  wall  of  cliffs,  extending 
for  scores  of  miles.  Our  first  day's  march  took 
us  up  this;  we  led  the  saddle-horses  and  drove 
the  pack-animals  up  a  very  rough  Navajo  trail 
which  zigzagged  to  the  top  through  a  partial 
break  in  the  continuous  rock  wall.  From  the 
summit  we  looked  back  over  the  desert,  barren, 
desolate,  and  yet  with  a  curious  fascination  of 
its  own.  In  the  middle  distance  rose  a  line  of 


ACROSS  THE  NAVAJO  DESERT     61 

low  cliffs,  deep  red,  well-nigh  blood-red,  in 
color.  In  the  far  distance  isolated  buttes  lifted 
daringly  against  the  horizon;  prominent  among 
them  was  the  abrupt  pinnacle  known  as  El 
Capitan,  a  landmark  for  the  whole  region. 

On  the  summit  we  were  once  more  among 
pines,  and  we  saw  again  the  beautiful  wild 
flowers  and  birds  we  had  left  on  Buckskin 
Mountain.  There  were  redbells  and  bluebells 
and  the  showy  Indian  paint-brushes;  delicate 
white  flowers  and  beautiful  purple  ones;  rabbit- 
brush  tipped  with  pale  yellow,  and  the  brighter 
yellow  of  the  Navajo  gorse;  and  innumerable 
others.  I  saw  a  Louisiana  tanager;  the  piny  on 
jays  were  everywhere;  ravens,  true  birds  of 
the  wilderness,  croaked  hoarsely. 

From  the  cliff  crest  we  travelled  south  through 
a  wild  and  picturesque  pass.  The  table-land 
was  rugged  and  mountainous;  but  it  sloped 
gradually  to  the  south,  and  the  mountains 
changed  to  rounded  hills.  It  was  a  dry  region, 
but  with  plenty  of  grama-grass,  and  much  of 
it  covered  with  an  open  forest  of  pinyon  and 
cedar.  After  eight  hours'  steady  jogging  along 
Indian  trails,  and  across  country  where  there 
was  no  trail,  we  camped  by  some  muddy  pools 
of  rain-water  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep 
washout.  Soon  afterward  a  Navajo  family 


62       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

passed  camp;  they  were  travelling  in  a  wagon 
drawn  by  a  mule  and  a  horse,  and  the  boys  of 
the  family  were  driving  a  big  herd  of  sheep  and 
goats.  The  incident  merely  illustrated  the  real 
progress  the  Indians  are  making,  and  how  far 
they  already  are  from  pure  savagery. 

Next  morning  the  red  dawn  and  the  flushed 
clouds  that  heralded  the  sunrise  were  very 
lovely.  Only  those  who  live  and  sleep  in  the 
open  fully  realize  the  beauty  of  dawn  and  moon 
light  and  starlight.  As  we  journeyed  southward 
the  land  grew  more  arid;  and  the  water  was 
scarce  and  bad.  In  the  afternoon  we  camped 
on  a  dry  mud-flat,  not  far  from  a  Navajo  sheep- 
farmer,  who  soon  visited  us.  Two  Navajos 
were  travelling  with  us;  merry,  pleasant  fellows. 
One  of  them  had  a  .22  Winchester  rifle,  with 
which  he  shot  a  couple  of  prairie-dogs  —  which 
he  and  his  friend  roasted  whole  for  their  supper, 
having  previously  shared  ours. 

Next  day  at  noon  we  climbed  the  steep, 
narrow  rock  ridge  on  whose  summit  rise  the 
three  Hopi  towns  at  one  of  which,  Walpi,  the 
snake-dance  was  to  be  held.  The  clustered 
rock  villages  stood  in  bold  outline,  on  the  cliff 
top,  against  the  blue  sky.  In  all  America  there 
is  no  more  strikingly  picturesque  sight. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE 

ON  our  trip  we  not  only  traversed  the 
domains  of  two  totally  different  and 
very  interesting  and  advanced  Indian 
tribes,  but  we  also  met  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  white  men.  One  of  the  latter,  by  the  way, 
related  an  anecdote  which  delighted  me  be 
cause  of  its  unexpected  racial  implications. 
The  narrator  was  a  Mormon,  the  son  of  an 
English  immigrant.  He  had  visited  Belgium 
as  a  missionary.  While  there  he  went  to  a 
theatre  to  hear  an  American  Negro  minstrel 
troupe;  and,  happening  to  meet  one  of  the 
minstrels  in  the  street,  he  hailed  him  with 
"Halloo,  Sam!"  to  which  the  pleased  and  aston 
ished  minstrel  cordially  responded:  "Well,  for 
de  Lawd's  sake !  Who'd  expect  to  see  a  white 
man  in  this  country?" 

I  did  not  happen  to  run  across  any  Mormons 
at  the  snake-dance;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that 
almost  every  other  class  of  Americans  was  rep 
resented  --  tourists,  traders,  cattlemen,  farmers, 

63 


64       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

government  officials,  politicians,  cowboys,  scien 
tists,  philanthropists,  all  kinds  of  men  and 
women.  We  were  especially  glad  to  meet  the 
assistant  commissioner  of  Indian  affairs,  Mr. 
Abbot,  one  of  the  most  useful  public  servants 
in  Uncle  Sam's  employ.  Mr.  Hubbell,  whose 
courtesy  toward  us  was  unwearied,  met  us; 
and  we  owed  our  comfortable  quarters  to  the 
kindness  of  the  Indian  agent  and  his  assistant. 
As  I  rode  in  I  was  accosted  by  Miss  Natalie 
Curtis,  who  has  done  so  very  much  to  give  to  In 
dian  culture  its  proper  position.  Miss  Curtis's 
purpose  has  been  to  preserve  and  perpetuate  all 
the  cultural  development  to  which  the  Indian 
has  already  attained  —  in  art,  music,  poetry, 
or  manufacture  —  and,  moreover,  to  endeavor 
to  secure  the  further  development  and  adapta 
tion  of  this  Indian  culture  so  as  to  make  it, 
what  it  can  undoubtedly  be  made,  an  im 
portant  constituent  element  in  our  national 
cultural  development. 

Among  the  others  at  the  snake-dance  was 
Geoffrey  O'Hara,  whom  Secretary  of  the  In 
terior  Lane  has  wisely  appointed  instructor 
of  native  Indian  music.  Mr.  O'Hara's  pur 
pose  is  to  perpetuate  and  develop  the  wealth 
of  Indian  music  and  poetry  —  and  ultimately 
the  rhythmical  dancing  that  goes  with  the  music 


THE   HOPI   SNAKE-DANCE          65 

and  poetry.  The  Indian  children  already  know 
most  of  the  poetry,  with  its  peculiarly  baffling 
rhythm.  Mr.  O'Hara  wishes  to  appoint  special 
Indian  instructors  of  this  music,  carefully  cho 
sen,  in  the  schools;  as  he  said:  "If  the  Navajo 
can  bring  with  him  into  civilization  the  ability 
to  preserve  his  striking  and  bewildering  rhythm, 
he  will  have  done  in  music  what  Thorpe,  the 
Olympic  champion,  did  in  athletics."  Miss 
Curtis  and  Mr.  O'Hara  represent  the  effort  to 
perpetuate  Indian  art  in  the  life  of  the  Indian 
to-day,  not  only  for  his  sake,  but  for  our  own. 
This  side  of  Indian  life  is  entirely  unrevealed 
to  most  white  men;  and  there  is  urgent  need 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  white  man  himself 
of  a  proper  appreciation  of  native  art.  Such 
appreciation  may  mean  much  toward  helping 
the  development  of  an  original  American  art 
for  our  whole  people. 

No  white  visitor  to  Walpi  was  quite  as  in 
teresting  as  an  Indian  visitor,  a  Navajo  who 
was  the  owner  and  chauffeur  of  the  motor  in 
which  Mr.  Hubbell  had  driven  to  Walpi.  He 
was  an  excellent  example  of  the  Indian  who 
ought  to  be  given  the  chance  to  go  to  a  non- 
reservation  school  —  a  class  not  perhaps  as 
yet  relatively  very  large,  but  which  will  grow 
steadily  larger.  He  had  gone  to  such  a  school; 


66       A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

and  at  the  close  of  his  course  had  entered  the 
machine-shops  of  the  Santa  Fe  and  North 
eastern  Railway  -  - 1  think  that  was  the  name 
of  the  road  —  staying  there  four  years,  joining 
the  local  union,  going  out  with  the  other  men 
when  they  struck,  and  having  in  all  ways  pre 
cisely  the  experience  of  the  average  skilled  me 
chanic.  Then  he  returned  to  the  reservation, 
where  he  is  now  a  prosperous  merchant,  run 
ning  two  stores;  and  he  purchased  his  auto 
mobile  as  a  matter  of  convenience  and  of  econ 
omy  in  time,  so  as  to  get  quickly  from  one  store 
to  the  other,  as  they  are  far  apart.  He  is  not  a 
Christian,  nor  is  his  wife;  but  his  children  have 
been  baptized  in  the  Catholic  Church.  Of 
course,  such  a  prosperous  career  is  exceptional 
for  an  Indian,  as  it  would  be  exceptional  for  a 
white  man;  but  there  were  Hopi  Indians  whom 
we  met  at  the  dance,  both  storekeepers  and 
farmers,  whose  success  had  been  almost  as  great. 
Among  both  the  Navajos  and  Hopis  the  prog 
ress  has  been  marked  during  the  last  thirty  or 
forty  years,  and  is  more  rapid  now  than  ever 
before,  and  careers  such  as  those  just  mentioned 
will  in  their  essence  be  repeated  again  and  again 
by  members  of  both  tribes  in  the  near  future. 
The  Hopis  are  so  far  advanced  that  most  of 
them  can  now  fully  profit  by  non-reservation 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          67 

schools.  For  large  sections  of  the  Navajos  the 
advance  must  be  slower.  For  these  the  agency 
school  is  the  best  school,  and  their  industrial 
training  should  primarily  be  such  as  will  fit 
them  for  work  in  their  own  homes,  and  for 
making  these  homes  cleaner  and  better. 

Of  course,  the  advance  in  any  given  case  is 
apt  to  be  both  fitful  and  one-sided  -  -  the  marvel 
is  that  it  is  not  more  so.  Moreover,  the  advance 
is  sometimes  taking  place  when  there  seems  dis- 
hearteningly  little  evidence  of  it.  I  have  never 
respected  any  men  or  women  more  than  some 
of  the  missionaries  and  their  wives  —  there 
were  examples  on  the  Navajo  reservation  —  who 
bravely  and  uncomplainingly  labor  for  right 
eousness,  although  knowing  that  the  visible 
fruits  of  their  labor  will  probably  be  gathered 
by  others  in  a  later  generation.  These  mis 
sionaries  may  fail  to  make  many  converts  at 
the  moment,  and  yet  they  may  unconsciously 
produce  such  an  effect  that  the  men  and  women 
who  themselves  remain  heathen  are  rather 
pleased  to  have  their  children  become  Chris 
tians.  I  have  in  mind,  as  illustrating  just  what 
I  mean,  one  missionary  family  on  the  Navajo 
reservation  whom  it  was  an  inspiration  to  meet; 
and,  by  the  way,  the  Christian  Navajo  inter 
preter  at  their  mission,  with  his  pretty  wife 


68       A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

and  children,  gave  fine  proof  of  what  the  right 
education  can  do  for  the  Indian. 

Among  those  at  the  snake-dance  was  a  Fran 
ciscan  priest,  who  has  done  much  good  work  on 
the  Navajo  reservation.  He  has  attained  great 
influence  with  the  Navajos  because  of  his  work 
for  their  practical  betterment.  He  doesn't  try 
to  convert  the  adults;  but  he  has  worked  with 
much  success  among  the  children.  Like  every 
competent  judge  I  met,  he  strongly  protested 
against  opening  or  cutting  down  the  Navajo 
reservation.  I  heartily  agree  with  him.  Such 
an  act  would  be  a  cruel  wrong,  and  would  bene 
fit  only  a  few  wealthy  cattle  and  sheep  men. 

There  has  apparently  been  more  missionary 
success  among  the  adult  Hopis  than  among  the 
adult  Navajos;  at  any  rate,  I  came  across  a 
Baptist  congregation  of  some  thirty  members, 
and  from  information  given  me  I  am  con 
vinced  that  these  converts  stood  in  all  ways 
ahead  of  their  heathen  brethren.  Exceptional 
qualities  of  courage,  hard-headed  common  sense, 
sympathy,  and  understanding  are  needed  by 
the  missionary  who  is  to  do  really  first-class 
work;  even  more  exceptional  than  are  the 
qualities  needed  by  the  head  of  a  white  con 
gregation  under  present  conditions.  The  most 
marked  successes  have  been  won  by  men, 


THE   HOPI   SNAKE-DANCE          69 

themselves  of  lofty  and  broad-minded  spiritual 
ity,  who  have  respected  the  advances  already 
made  by  the  Indian  toward  a  higher  spiritual 
life,  and  instead  of  condemning  these  advances 
have  made  use  of  them  in  bringing  his  soul  to 
a  loftier  level.  One  very  important  service  ren 
dered  by  the  missionaries  is  their  warfare  on 
what  is  evil  among  the  white  men  on  the  reser 
vations;  they  are  most  potent  allies  in  warring 
against  drink  and  sexual  immorality,  two  of  the 
greatest  curses  with  which  the  Indian  has  to 
contend.  The  missionary  is  always  the  foe  of 
the  white  man  of  loose  life,  and  of  the  white  man 
who  sells  whiskey.  Many  of  the  missionaries, 
including  all  who  do  most  good,  are  active  in 
protecting  the  rights  of  each  Indian  to  his  land. 
Like  the  rest  of  us,  the  missionary  needs  to  keep 
in  mind  the  fact  that  the  Indian  criminal  is  on 
the  whole  more  dangerous  to  the  well-meaning 
Indian  than  any  outsider  can  at  present  be; 
for  there  are  as  wide  differences  of  character 
and  conduct  among  Indians  as  among  whites, 
and  there  is  the  same  need  in  the  one  case  as  in 
the  other  of  treating  each  individual  according 
to  his  conduct  —  and  of  persuading  the  people 
of  his  own  class  and  color  thus  to  treat  him. 

Several  times  we  walked  up  the  precipitous 
cliff   trails   to   the   mesa   top,   and   visited   the 


70       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

three  villages  thereon.  We  were  received  with 
friendly  courtesy  -  -  perhaps  partly  because  we 
endeavored  to  show  good  manners  ourselves, 
which,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  is  not  invariably  the 
case  with  tourists.  The  houses  were  colored 
red  or  white;  and  the  houses  individually,  and 
the  villages  as  villages,  compared  favorably 
with  the  average  dwelling  or  village  in  many 
of  the  southern  portions  of  Mediterranean  Eu 
rope.  Contrary  to  what  we  had  seen  in  the 
Hopi  village  near  Tuba,  most  of  the  houses 
were  scrupulously  clean;  although  the  condi 
tion  of  the  streets -- while  not  worse  than  in 
the  Mediterranean  villages  above  referred  to  — 
showed  urgent  need  of  a  crusade  for  sanitation 
and  elementary  hygiene.  The  men  and  women 
were  well  dressed,  in  clothes  quite  as  picturesque 
and  quite  as  near  our  own  garb  as  the  dress 
of  many  European  peasants  of  a  good  type; 
aside,  of  course,  from  the  priests  and  young 
men  who  were  preparing  for  the  ceremonial 
dance,  and  who  were  clad,  or  unclad,  accord 
ing  to  the  ancient  ritual.  There  were  several 
rooms  in  each  house;  and  the  furniture  included 
stoves,  sewing-machines,  chairs,  window-panes 
of  glass,  and  sometimes  window-curtains.  There 
were  wagons  in  one  or  two  of  the  squares,  for 
a  wagon  road  has  been  built  to  one  end  of  the 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          71 

mesa;  and  we  saw  donkeys  laden  with  fagots 
or  water  —  another  south  European  analogy. 

Altogether,  the  predominant  impression  made 
by  the  sight  of  the  ordinary  life  —  not  the 
strange  heathen  ceremonies  —  was  that  of  a 
reasonably  advanced,  and  still  advancing,  semi- 
civilization;  not  savagery  at  all.  There  is  big 
room  for  improvement;  but  so  there  is  among 
whites;  and  while  the  improvement  should  be 
along  the  lines  of  gradual  assimilation  to  the 
life  of  the  best  whites,  it  should  unquestionably 
be  so  shaped  as  to  preserve  and  develop  the 
very  real  element  of  native  culture  possessed 
by  these  Indians  —  which,  as  I  have  already 
said,  if  thus  preserved  and  developed,  may  in 
the  end  become  an  important  contribution  to 
American  cultural  life.  Ultimately  I  hope  the 
Indian  will  be  absorbed  into  the  white  popula 
tion,  on  a  full  equality;  as  was  true,  for  instance, 
of  the  Indians  who  served  in  my  own  regiment, 
the  Rough  Riders;  as  is  true  on  the  Navajo  res 
ervation  itself  of  two  of  the  best  men  thereon, 
both  in  government  employ,  both  partly  of 
northern  Indian  blood,  and  both  indistinguish 
able  from  the  most  upright  and  efficient  of  the 
men  of  pure  white  blood. 

A  visiting  clergyman  from  the  Episcopal  Ca 
thedral  at  Fond  du  Lac  took  me  into  one  of 


72       A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

the  houses  to  look  at  the  pottery.  The  grand 
mother  of  the  house  was  the  pottery-maker,  and, 
entirely  unhelped  from  without  and  with  no  in 
centive  of  material  reward,  but  purely  to  gratify 
her  own  innate  artistic  feeling,  she  had  developed 
the  art  of  pottery-making  to  a  very  unusual  de 
gree;  it  was  really  beautiful  pottery.  On  the 
walls,  as  in  most  of  the  other  houses,  were  pic 
ture-cards  and  photographs,  including  those  of 
her  children  and  grandchildren,  singly  and 
grouped  with  their  schoolmates.  Two  of  her 
daughters  and  half  a  dozen  grandchildren  were 
present,  and  it  was  evident  that  the  family  life 
was  gentle  and  attractive.  The  grandfather 
was  not  a  Christian,  but  "he  is  one  of  the  best 
old  men  I  ever  knew,  and  I  must  say  that  I  ad 
mire  and  owe  him  much,  if  I  am  a  parson,"  said 
my  companion.  The  Hopis  are  monogamous, 
and  the  women  are  well  treated;  the  man  tills 
the  fields  and  weaves,  and  may  often  be  seen 
bringing  in  fire-wood;  and  the  fondness  of  both 
father  and  mother  for  their  children  is  very 
evident. 

Many  well-informed  and  well-meaning  men 
are  apt  to  protest  against  the  effort  to  keep 
and  develop  what  is  best  in  the  Indian's  own 
historic  life  as  incompatible  with  making  him 
an  American  citizen,  and  speak  of  those  of 


THE   HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          73 

opposite  views  as  wishing  to  preserve  the  In 
dians  only  as  national  bric-a-brac.  This  is 
not  so.  We  believe  in  fitting  him  for  citizen 
ship  as  rapidly  as  possible.  But  where  he 
cannot  be  pushed  ahead  rapidly  we  believe  in 
making  progress  slowly,  and  in  all  cases  where  it 
is  possible  we  hope  to  keep  for  him  and  for  us 
what  was  best  in  his  old  culture.  As  eminently 
practical  men  as  Mr.  Frissell,  the  head  of  Hamp 
ton  Institute  (an  educational  model  for  white, 
red,  and  black  men  alike),  and  Mr.  Valentine, 
the  late  commissioner  of  Indian  affairs,  have 
agreed  with  Miss  Curtis  in  drawing  up  a  scheme 
for  the  payment  from  private  sources  of  a  num 
ber  of  high-grade,  specially  fitted  educational 
experts,  whose  duty  it  should  be  to  correlate 
all  the  agencies,  public  and  private,  that  are 
working  for  Indian  education,  and  also  to  make 
this  education,  not  a  mechanical  impress  from 
without,  but  a  drawing  out  of  the  qualities  that 
are  within.  The  Indians  themselves  must  be 
used  in  such  education;  many  of  their  old  men 
can  speak  as  sincerely,  as  fervently,  and  as 
eloquently  of  duty  as  any  white  teacher,  and 
these  old  men  are  the  very  teachers  best  fitted 
to  perpetuate  the  Indian  poetry  and  music. 
The  effort  should  be  to  develop  the  existing  art 
—  whether  in  silver-making,  pottery-making, 


74       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

blanket  and  basket  weaving,  or  lace-knitting  — 
and  not  to  replace  it  by  servile  and  mechanical 
copying.  This  is  only  to  apply  to  the  Indian  a 
principle  which  ought  to  be  recognized  among 
all  our  people.  A  great  art  must  be  living,  must 
spring  from  the  soul  of  the  people;  if  it  rep 
resents  merely  a  copying,  an  imitation,  and  if 
it  is  confined  to  a  small  caste,  it  cannot  be 
great. 

Of  course  all  Indians  should  not  be  forced 
into  the  same  mould.  Some  can  be  made  farm 
ers;  others  mechanics;  yet  others  have  the 
soul  of  the  artist.  Let  us  try  to  give  each  his 
chance  to  develop  what  is  best  in  him.  More 
over,  let  us  be  wary  of  interfering  overmuch 
with  either  his  work  or  his  play.  It  is  mere 
tyranny,  for  instance,  to  stop  all  Indian  dances. 
Some  which  are  obscene,  or  which  are  dangerous 
on  other  grounds,  must  be  prohibited.  Others 
should  be  permitted,  and  many  of  them  en 
couraged.  Nothing  that  tells  for  the  joy  of  life, 
in  any  community,  should  be  lightly  touched. 

A  few  Indians  may  be  able  to  turn  them 
selves  into  ordinary  citizens  in  a  dozen  years. 
Give  these  exceptional  Indians  every  chance; 
but  remember  that  the  majority  must  change 
gradually,  and  that  it  will  take  generations  to 
make  the  change  complete.  Help  them  to 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          75 

make  it  in  such  fashion  that  when  the  change 
is  accomplished  we  shall  find  that  the  original 
and  valuable  elements  in  the  Indian  culture 
have  been  retained,  so  that  the  new  citizens 
come  with  full  hands  into  the  great  field  of 
American  life,  and  contribute  to  that  life  some 
thing  of  marked  value  to  all  of  us,  something 
which  it  would  be  a  misfortune  to  all  of  us  to 
have  destroyed. 

As  an  example,  take  the  case  of  these  Hopi 
mesa  towns,  perched  in  such  boldly  picturesque 
fashion  on  high,  sheer-walled  rock  ridges.  Many 
good  people  wish  to  force  the  Hopis  to  desert 
these  towns,  and  live  in  isolated  families  in  nice 
tin-roofed  houses  on  the  plains  below.  I  be 
lieve  that  this  would  be  a  mistake  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  Indians  —  not  to  mention  de 
priving  our  country  of  something  as  notable  and 
as  attractive  as  the  castles  that  have  helped 
make  the  Rhine  beautiful  and  famous.  Let  the 
effort  be  to  insist  on  cleanliness  and  sanitation 
in  the  villages  as  they  are,  and  especially  to 
train  the  Indians  themselves  to  insist  thereon; 
and  to  make  it  easier  for  them  to  get  water. 
In  insisting  on  cleanliness,  remember  that  we 
preach  a  realizable  ideal;  our  own  ancestors 
lived  in  villages  as  filthy  not  three  centuries 
ago.  The  breezy  coolness  of  the  rocky  mesa 


76       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

top  and  the  magnificent  outlook  would  make 
it  to  me  personally  a  far  more  attractive  dwell 
ing-place  than  the  hot,  dusty  plains.  More 
over,  the  present  Hop!  house,  with  its  thick  roof, 
is  cooler  and  pleasanter  than  a  tin-roofed  house. 
I  believe  it  would  be  far  wiser  gradually  to 
develop  the  Hopi  house  itself,  making  it  more 
commodious  and  convenient,  rather  than  to 
abandon  it  and  plant  the  Indian  in  a  brand- 
new  government-built  house,  precisely  like  some 
ten  million  other  cheap  houses.  The  Hopi 
architecture  is  a  product  of  its  own  environ 
ment;  it  is  as  picturesque  as  anything  of  the  kind 
which  our  art  students  travel  to  Spain  in  order 
to  study.  Therefore  let  us  keep  it.  The  Hopi 
architecture  can  be  kept,  adapted,  and  de 
veloped  just  as  we  have  kept,  adapted,  and 
developed  the  Mission  architecture  of  the  South 
west —  with  the  results  seen  in  beautiful  Le- 
land  Stanford  University.  The  University  of 
New  Mexico  is,  most  wisely,  modelled  on  these 
pueblo  buildings;  and  the  architect^  has  done 
admirable  work  of  the  kind  by  adapting  Indian 
architectural  ideas  in  some  of  his  California 
houses.  The  Hopi  is  himself  already  thus  de 
veloping  his  house;  as  I  have  said,  he  has  put 
in  glass  windows  and  larger  doors;  he  is  fur 
nishing  it;  he  is  making  it  continually  more 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          77 

livable.  Give  him  a  chance  to  utilize  his  own 
inherent  sense  of  beauty  in  making  over  his 
own  village  for  himself.  Give  him  a  chance  to 
lead  his  own  life  as  he  ought  to;  and  realize 
that  he  has  something  to  teach  us  as  well  as 
to  learn  from  us.  The  Hopi  of  the  younger  gen 
eration,  at  least  in  some  of  the  towns,  is  chang 
ing  rapidly;  and  it  is  safe  to  leave  it  to  him 
to  decide  where  he  will  build  and  keep  his 
house. 

I  cannot  so  much  as  touch  on  the  absorb 
ingly  interesting  questions  of  the  Hopi  spiritual 
and  religious  life,  and  of  the  amount  of  def 
erence  that  can  properly  be  paid  to  one  side  of 
this  life.  The  snake-dance  and  antelope-dance, 
which  we  had  come  to  see,  are  not  only  in 
teresting  as  relics  of  an  almost  inconceivably 
remote  and  savage  past  —  analogous  to  the 
past  wherein  our  own  ancestors  once  dwelt  - 
but  also  represent  a  mystic  symbolism  which 
has  in  it  elements  that  are  ennobling  and  not 
debasing.  These  dances  are  prayers  or  invoca 
tions  for  rain,  the  crowning  blessing  in  this  dry 
land.  The  rain  is  adored  and  invoked  both  as 
male  and  female;  the  gentle  steady  downpour 
is  the  female,  the  storm  with  lightning  the  male. 
The  lightning-stick  is  "strong  medicine,"  and 
is  used  in  all  these  religious  ceremonies.  The 


78       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

snakes,  the  brothers  of  men,  as  are  all  living 
things  in  the  Hopi  creed,  are  besought  to  tell 
the  beings  of  the  underworld  man's  need  of 
water. 

As  a  former  great  chief  at  Washington  I 
was  admitted  to  the  sacred  room,  or  one- 
roomed  house,  the  kiva,  in  which  the  chosen 
snake  priests  had  for  a  fortnight  been  getting 
ready  for  the  sacred  dance.  Very  few  white 
men  have  been  thus  admitted,  and  never  un 
less  it  is  known  that  they  will  treat  with  cour 
tesy  and  respect  what  the  Indians  revere. 
Entrance  to  the  house,  which  was  sunk  in  the 
rock,  was  through  a  hole  in  the  roof,  down  a 
ladder  across  whose  top  hung  a  cord  from  which 
fluttered  three  eagle  plumes  and  dangled  three 
small  animal  skins.  Below  was  a  room  perhaps 
fifteen  feet  by  twenty-five.  One  end  of  it,  oc 
cupying  perhaps  a  third  of  its  length,  was 
raised  a  foot  above  the  rest,  and  the  ladder 
led  down  to  this  raised  part.  Against  the  rear 
wall  of  this  raised  part  or  dais  lay  thirty  odd 
rattlesnakes,  most  of  them  in  a  twined  heap  in 
one  corner,  but  a  dozen  by  themselves  scattered 
along  the  wall.  There  was  also  a  pot  containing 
several  striped  ribbon-snakes,  too  lively  to  be 
left  at  large.  Eight  or  ten  priests,  some  old, 
some  young,  sat  on  the  floor  in  the  lower  and 


THE   HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          79 

larger  two-thirds  of  the  room,  and  greeted  me 
with  grave  courtesy;  they  spread  a  blanket  on 
the  edge  of  the  dais,  and  I  sat  down,  with  my 
back  to  the  snakes  and  about  eight  feet  from 
them;  a  little  behind  and  to  one  side  of  me  sat 
a  priest  with  a  kind  of  fan  or  brush  made  of 
two  or  three  wing-plumes  of  an  eagle,  who  kept 
quiet  guard  over  his  serpent  wards.  At  the 
farther  end  of  the  room  was  the  altar;  the 
rude  picture  of  a  coyote  was  painted  on  the 
floor,  and  on  the  four  sides  of  this  coyote  pic 
ture  were  paintings  of  snakes;  on  three  sides  it 
was  hemmed  in  by  lightning-sticks,  or  thunder- 
sticks,  standing  upright  in  little  clay  cups,  and 
on  the  fourth  side  by  eagle  plumes  held  similarly 
erect.  Some  of  the  priests  were  smoking  — 
for  pleasure,  not  ceremonially  —  and  they  were 
working  at  parts  of  the  ceremonial  dress.  One 
had  a  cast  rattlesnake  skin  which  he  was  chew 
ing,  to  limber  it  up,  just  as  Sioux  squaws  used 
to  chew  buckskin.  Another  was  fixing  a  leather 
apron  with  pendent  thongs;  he  stood  up  and 
tried  it  on.  All  were  scantily  clad,  in  breech- 
clouts  or  short  kilts  or  loin  flaps;  their  naked, 
copper-red  bodies,  lithe  and  sinewy,  shone,  and 
each  had  been  splashed  in  two  or  three  places 
with  a  blotch  or  streak  of  white  paint.  One 
spoke  English  and  translated  freely;  I  was  care- 


80       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

ful  not  to  betray  too  much  curiosity  or  touch  on 
any  matter  which  they  might  be  reluctant  to 
discuss.  The  snakes  behind  me  never  rattled 
or  showed  any  signs  of  anger;  the  translator 
volunteered  the  remark  that  they  were  peace 
able  because  they  had  been  given  medicine  — 
whatever  that  might  mean,  supposing  the  state 
ment  to  be  true  according  to  the  sense  in  which 
the  words  are  accepted  by  plainsmen.  But 
several  of  them  were  active  in  the  sluggish 
rattlesnake  fashion.  One  glided  sinuously  to 
ward  me;  when  he  was  a  yard  away,  I  pointed 
him  out  to  the  watcher  with  the  eagle  feathers; 
the  watcher  quietly  extended  the  feathers  and 
stroked  and  pushed  the  snake's  head  back,  until 
it  finally  turned  and  crawled  back  to  the  wall. 
Half  a  dozen  times  different  snakes  thus  crawled 
out  toward  me  and  were  turned  back,  without 
their  ever  displaying  a  symptom  of  irritation. 
One  snake  got  past  the  watcher  and  moved 
slowly  past  me  about  six  inches  away,  where 
upon  the  priest  on  my  left  leaned  across  me  and 
checked  its  advance  by  throwing  pinches  of  dust 
in  its  face  until  the  watcher  turned  round  with 
his  feather  sceptre.  Every  move  was  made 
without  hurry  and  with  quiet  unconcern;  nei 
ther  snake  nor  man,  at  any  time,  showed  a  trace 
of  worry  or  anger;  all,  human  beings  and  reptiles, 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE         81 

were  in  an  atmosphere  of  quiet  peacefulness. 
When  I  rose  to  say  good-by,  I  thanked  my  hosts 
for  their  courtesy;  they  were  pleased,  and  two 
or  three  shook  hands  with  me. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  following  day,  August 
20,  the  antelope  priests  —  the  men  of  the  an 
telope  clan  -  -  held  their  dance.  The  snake 
priests  took  part.  It  was  held  in  the  middle  of 
Walpi  village,  round  a  big,  rugged  column  of 
rock,  a  dozen  feet  high,  which  juts  out  of  the 
smooth  surface.  The  antelope-dancers  came  in 
first,  clad  in  kilts,  with  fox  skins  behind;  other 
wise  naked,  painted  with  white  splashes  and 
streaks,  and  their  hair  washed  with  the  juice 
of  the  yucca  root.  Their  leader's  kilt  was  white; 
he  wore  a  garland  and  anklets  of  cottonwood 
leaves,  and  sprinkled  water  from  a  sacred  vessel 
to  the  four  corners  of  heaven.  Another  leader 
carried  the  sacred  bow  and  a  bull-roarer,  and 
they  moved  to  its  loud  moaning  sound.  The 
snake  priests  were  similarly  clad,  but  their 
kirtles  were  of  leather;  eagle  plumes  were  in 
their  long  hair,  and  under  their  knees  they  car 
ried  rattles  made  of  tortoise-shell.  In  two  lines 
they  danced  opposite  each  other,  keeping  time 
to  the  rhythm  of  their  monotonous  chanting. 

On  the  top  of  the  column  were  half  a  dozen 
Hopi  young  men,  clad  in  ordinary  white  man's 


82       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

clothing.  Archie  joined  these,  and  entered  in 
to  conversation  with  them.  They  spoke  Eng 
lish;  they  had  been  at  non-reservation  schools; 
they  were  doing  well  as  farmers  and  citizens. 
One  and  all  they  asserted  that,  in  order  to 
prosper  in  after  life,  it  was  necessary  for  the 
Indian  to  get  away  to  a  non-reservation  school; 
that  merely  to  go  to  an  agency  school  was 
not  enough  in  any  community  which  was  on 
the  highroad  of  progress;  and  that  they  in 
tended  to  send  their  own  children  for  a  couple 
of  years  to  an  agency  school  and  then  to  a  non- 
reservation  school.  They  looked  at  the  cere 
monial  religious  dances  of  their  fathers  pre 
cisely  as  the  whites  did;  they  were  in  effect 
Christians,  although  not  connected  with  any 
specific  church.  They  represented  substantial 
success  in  the  effort  to  raise  the  Indian  to  the 
level  of  the  white  man.  In  their  case  it  was 
not  necessary  to  push  them  toward  forgetful- 
ness  of  their  past.  They  were  travelling  away 
from  it  naturally,  and  of  their  own  accord.  As 
their  type  becomes  dominant  the  snake-dance 
and  antelope -dance  will  disappear,  the  Hopi 
religious  myths  will  become  memories,  and  the 
Hopis  will  live  in  villages  on  the  mesa  tops,  or 
scattered  out  on  the  plains,  as  their  several  in 
clinations  point,  just  as  if  they  were  so  many 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          83 

white  men.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  art,  the 
music,  the  poetry  of  their  elders  will  be  pre 
served  during  the  change  coming  over  the 
younger  generation. 

On  my  return  from  this  dance  I  met  two  of 
the  best  Indian  agents  in  the  entire  service. 
The  first  was  Mr.  Parquette,  a  Wisconsin  man, 
himself  part  Indian  by  blood.  The  other  was 
Mr.  Shelton,  who  has  done  more  for  the  Nava- 
jos  than  any  other  living  man.  He  has  sternly 
put  down  the  criminal  element  exactly  as  he 
has  toiled  for  and  raised  the  decent  Indians  and 
protected  them  against  criminal  whites;  more 
over,  he  has  actually  reformed  these  Indian 
criminals,  so  that  they  are  now  themselves 
decent  people  and  his  fast  friends;  while  the 
mass  of  the  Indians  recognize  him  as  their 
leader  who  has  rendered  them  incalculable 
services.  He  has  got  the  Indians  themselves 
to  put  an  absolute  stop  to  gambling,  whiskey- 
drinking,  and  sexual  immorality.  His  annual 
agricultural  fair  is  one  of  the  features  of  Navajo 
life,  and  is  of  far-reaching  educational  value. 
Yet  this  exceptionally  upright  and  efficient 
public  servant,  who  has  done  such  great  and 
lasting  good  to  the  Indians,  was  for  years  the 
object  of  attack  by  certain  Eastern  philan 
thropic  associations,  simply  because  he  warred 


84       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

against  Indian  criminals  who  were  no  more 
entitled  to  sympathy  than  the  members  of  the 
Whyo  gang  in  New  York  City.  Messrs.  Shelton 
and  Parquette  explained  to  me  the  cruel  wrong 
that  would  be  done  to  the  Navajos  if  their  res 
ervation  was  thrown  open  or  cut  down.  It  is 
desert  country.  It  cannot  be  utilized  in  small 
tracts,  for  in  many  parts  the  wrater  is  so  scanty 
that  hundreds,  and  in  places  even  thousands, 
of  acres  must  go  to  the  support  of  any  family. 
The  Indians  need  it  all;  they  are  steadily  im 
proving  as  agriculturists  and  stock-growers; 
few  small  settlers  could  come  in  even  if  the 
reservation  were  thrown  open ;  the  movement  to 
open  it,  and  to  ruin  the  Indians,  is  merely  in 
the  interest  of  a  few  needy  adventurers  and  of 
a  few  wealthy  men  who  wish  to  increase  their 
already  large  fortunes,  and  who  have  much 
political  influence. 

Mr.  Robinson,  the  superintendent  of  irri 
gation,  in  protesting  against  opening  the  reser 
vation,  dwelt  upon  the  vital  need  of  getting 
from  Congress  sufficient  money  to  enable  the 
engineers  to  develop  water  by  digging  wells, 
preserving  springs,  and  making  flood  reservoirs. 
The  lack  of  water  is  the  curse  of  this  desert 
reservation.  The  welfare  of  the  Indians  depends 
on  the  further  development  of  the  water-supply. 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE         85 

That  night  fires  flared  from  the  villages  on 
the  top  of  the  mesa.  Before  there  was  a  hint 
of  dawn  we  heard  the  voice  of  the  crier  sum 
moning  the  runners  to  get  ready  for  the  snake- 
dance;  and  we  rose  and  made  our  way  to  the 
mesa  top.  The  "yellow  line,"  as  the  Hopis 
call  it,  was  in  the  east,  and  dawn  was  beautiful, 
as  we  stood  on  the  summit  and  watched  the 
women  and  children  in  their  ceremonial  finery, 
looking  from  the  housetops  and  cliff  edges  for 
the  return  of  the  racers.  On  this  occasion  they 
dropped  their  civilized  clothes.  The  children 
were  painted  and  naked  save  for  kilts;  and 
they  wore  feathers  and  green  corn  leaves  in 
their  hair.  The  women  wore  the  old-style 
clothing;  many  of  them  were  in  their  white 
bridal  dresses,  which  in  this  queer  tribe  are 
woven  by  the  bridegroom  and  his  male  kins 
folk  for  the  bride's  trousseau.  The  returning 
racers  ran  at  speed  up  the  precipitous  paths  to 
the  mesa,  although  it  was  the  close  of  a  six- 
mile  run.  Most  of  them,  including  the  winner, 
wore  only  a  breech-clout  and  were  decked  with 
feathers.  I  should  like  to  have  entered  that 
easy-breathing  winner  in  a  Marathon  contest ! 
Many  of  the  little  boys  ran  the  concluding  mile 
or  so  with  them;  and  the  little  girls  made  a 
pretty  spectacle  as  they  received  the  little  boys 


86       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

much  as  the  women  and  elder  girls  greeted  the 
men.  Then  came  the  corn-scramble,  or  mock- 
fight  over  the  corn;  and  then  in  each  house  a 
feast  was  set,  especially  for  the  children. 

At  noon,  thanks  to  Mr.  Hubbell,  and  to  the 
fact  that  I  was  an  ex-President,  we  were  ad 
mitted  to  the  sacred  kiva--the  one-roomed 
temple-house  which  I  had  already  visited  - 
while  the  snake  priests  performed  the  cere 
mony  of  washing  the  snakes.  Very  few  white 
men  have  ever  seen  this  ceremony.  The  sight 
was  the  most  interesting  of  our  entire  trip. 

There  were  twenty  Indians  in  the  kiva,  all 
stripped  to  their  breech-clouts;  only  about  ten 
actually  took  part  in  handling  the  snakes,  or 
in  any  of  the  ceremonies  except  the  rhythmic 
chant,  in  which  all  joined.  Eighty  or  a  hun 
dred  snakes,  half  of  them  rattlers,  the  others 
bull-snakes  or  ribbon-snakes,  lay  singly  or  in 
tangled  groups  against  the  wall  at  the  raised  end 
of  the  room.  They  were  quiet  and  in  no  way 
nervous  or  excited.  Two  men  stood  at  this  end 
of  the  room.  Two  more  stood  at  the  other  end, 
where  the  altar  was ;  there  w^as  some  sand  about 
the  altar,  and  the  eagle  feathers  we  had  pre 
viously  seen  there  had  been  removed,  but  the 
upright  thunder-sticks  remained.  The  other 
Indians  were  squatted  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          87 

and  half  a  dozen  of  them  were  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  a  very  big,  ornamented  wooden 
bowl  of  water,  placed  on  certain  white-painted 
symbols  on  the  floor.  Two  of  these  Indians  held 
sacred  rattles,  and  there  was  a  small  bowl  of 
sacred  meal  beside  them.  There  was  some 
seemingly  ceremonial  pipe-smoking. 

After  some  minutes  of  silence,  one  of  the 
squatting  priests,  who  seemed  to  be  the  leader, 
and  who  had  already  puffed  smoke  toward  the 
bowl,  began  a  low  prayer,  at  the  same  time  hold 
ing  and  manipulating  in  his  fingers  a  pinch  of  the 
sacred  "meal.  The  others  once  and  again  during 
this  prayer  uttered  in  unison  a  single  word  or 
exclamation  —  a  kind  of  selah  or  amen.  At 
the  end  he  threw  the  meal  into  the  bowl  of 
water;  he  had  already  put  some  in  at  the  out 
set  of  the  prayer.  Then  he  began  a  rhythmic 
chant,  in  which  all  the  others  joined,  the  rattles 
being  shaken  and  the  hands  moved  in  harmony 
with  the  rhythm.  The  chant  consisted  seem 
ingly  of  a  few  words  repeated  over  and  over 
again.  It  was  a  strange  scene,  in  the  half- 
light  of  the  ancient  temple-room.  The  copper- 
red  bodies  of  the  priests  swayed,  and  their 
strongly  marked  faces,  hitherto  changeless, 
gained  a  certain  quiet  intensity  of  emotion. 
The  chanting  grew  in  fervor;  yet  it  remained 


88       A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

curiously  calm  throughout  (except  for  a  moment 
at  a  time,  about  which  I  shall  speak  later). 
Then  the  two  men  who  stood  near  the  snakes 
stooped  over,  and  each  picked  up  a  handful 
of  them,  these  first  handfuls  being  all  rattle 
snakes.  It  was  done  in  tranquil,  matter-of-fact 
fashion,  and  the  snakes  behaved  with  equally 
tranquil  unconcern.  All  was  quiet  save  for 
the  chanting.  The  snakes  were  handed  to  two 
of  the  men  squatting  round  the  bowl,  who  re 
ceived  them  as  if  they  had  been  harmless,  hold 
ing  them  by  the  middle  of  the  body,  or  at  least 
well  away  from  the  head.  This  was  repeated  un 
til  half  a  dozen  of  the  squatting  priests  held  each 
three  or  four  poisonous  serpents  in  his  hands. 
The  chanting  continued,  in  strongly  accented 
but  monotonous  rhythm,  while  the  rattles  were 
shaken,  and  the  snakes  moved  up  and  down 
or  shaken,  in  unison  with  it.  Then  suddenly 
the  chant  quickened  and  rose  to  a  scream,  and 
the  snakes  were  all  plunged  into  the  great  bowl 
of  water,  a  writhing  tangle  of  snakes  and  hands. 
Immediately  afterward  they  were  withdrawn, 
as  suddenly  as  they  had  been  plunged  in,  and 
were  hurled  half  across  the  room,  to  the  floor,  on 
and  around  the  altar.  They  were  hurled  from 
a  distance  of  a  dozen  feet,  with  sufficient  violence 
to  overturn  the  erect  thunder-sticks.  That  the 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          89 

snakes  should  have  been  quiet  and  inoffensive 
under  the  influence  of  the  slow  movements  and 
atmosphere  of  calm  that  had  hitherto  obtained 
was  understandable;  but  the  unexpected  vio 
lence  of  the  bathing,  and  then  of  the  way  in 
which  they  were  hurled  to  the  floor,  together 
with  the  sudden  screaming  intensity  of  the 
chant,  ought  to  have  upset  the  nerves  of  every 
snake  there.  However,  it  did  not.  The  snakes 
woke  to  an  interest  in  life,  it  is  true,  writhed 
themselves  free  of  one  another  and  of  the  upset 
lightning-sticks,  and  began  to  glide  rapidly  in 
every  direction.  But  only  one  showed  symp 
toms  of  anger,  and  these  were  not  marked. 
The  two  standing  Indians  at  this  end  of  the 
room  herded  the  snakes  with  their  eagle  feathers, 
gently  brushing  and  stroking  them  back  as  they 
squirmed  toward  us,  or  toward  the  singing, 
sitting  priests. 

The  process  was  repeated  until  all  the  snakes, 
venomous  and  non-venomous  alike,  had  been 
suddenly  bathed  and  then  hurled  on  the  floor, 
filling  the  other  end  of  the  room  with  a  wrig 
gling,  somewhat  excited  serpent  population, 
which  was  actively,  but  not  in  any  way  ner 
vously,  shepherded  by  the  two  Indians  stationed 
for  that  purpose.  These  men  were,  like  the 
others,  clad  only  in  a  breech-clout,  but  they 


90       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

moved  about  among  the  snakes,  barelegged 
and  barefooted,  with  no  touch  of  concern. 
One  or  two  of  the  rattlers  became  vicious  under 
the  strain,  and  coiled  and  struck.  I  thought 
I  saw  one  of  the  two  shepherding  watchers 
struck  in  the  hand  by  a  recalcitrant  sidewinder 
which  refused  to  be  soothed  by  the  feathers,  and 
which  he  finally  picked  up;  but,  if  so,  the  man 
gave  no  sign  and  his  placidity  remained  un- 
rufHed.  Most  of  the  snakes  showed  no  anger  at 
all;  it  seemed  to  me  extraordinary  that  they 
were  not  all  of  them  maddened. 

When  the  snakes  had  all  been  washed,  the 
leading  priest  again  prayed.  Afterward  he  once 
more  scattered  meal  in  the  bowl,  in  lines  east, 
west,  north,  and  south,  and  twice  diagonally. 
The  chant  was  renewed;  it  grew  slower;  the 
rattles  were  rattled  more  slowly;  then  the  sing 
ing  stopped  and  all  was  over. 

At  the  end  of  the  ceremony  I  thanked  my 
hosts  and  asked  if  there  was  anything  I  could 
do  to  show  my  appreciation  of  the  courtesy 
they  had  shown  me.  They  asked  if  I  could 
send  them  some  cowry  shells,  which  they  use 
as  decorations  for  the  dance.  I  told  them  I 
would  send  them  a  sackful.  They  shook  hands 
cordially  with  all  of  us,  and  we  left.  I  have 
never  seen  a  wilder  or,  in  its  way,  more  impres- 


THE   HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          91 

sive  spectacle  than  that  of  these  chanting, 
swaying,  red-skinned  medicine-men,  their  lithe 
bodies  naked,  unconcernedly  handling  the  death 
that  glides  and  strikes,  while  they  held  their 
mystic  worship  in  the  gray  twilight  of  the  kiva. 
The  ritual  and  the  soul-needs  it  met,  and  the 
symbolism  and  the  dark  savagery,  were  all 
relics  of  an  ages-vanished  past,  survivals  of  an 
elder  world. 

The  snake -dance  itself  took  place  in  the 
afternoon  at  five  o'clock.  There  were  many 
hundreds  of  onlookers,  almost  as  many  whites 
as  Indians,  and  most  of  the  Indian  spectators 
were  in  white  man's  dress,  in  strong  contrast 
to  the  dancers.  The  antelope  priests  entered 
first  and  ranged  themselves  by  a  tree-like  bundle 
of  cottonwood  branches  against  the  wall  of 
buildings  to  one  side  of  the  open  place  where 
the  dance  takes  place;  the  other  side  is  the 
cliff  edge.  The  snakes,  in  a  bag,  were  stowed 
by  the  bundle  of  cottonwood  branches.  Young 
girls  stood  near  the  big  pillar  of  stone  with 
sacred  meal  to  scatter  at  the  foot  of  the  pillar 
after  the  snakes  had  been  thrown  down  there 
and  taken  away.  Then  the  snake  priests  en 
tered  in  their  fringed  leather  kilts  and  eagle- 
plume  head-dresses ;  fox  skins  hung  at  the  backs 
of  their  girdles,  their  bodies  were  splashed  and 


92       A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

streaked  with  white,  and  on  each  of  them  the 
upper  part  of  the  face  was  painted  black  and 
the  lower  part  white.  Chanting,  and  stepping 
in  rhythm  to  the  chant,  and  on  one  particular 
stone  slab  stamping  hard  as  a  signal  to  the 
underworld,  they  circled  the  empty  space  and 
for  some  minutes  danced  opposite  the  line  of 
antelope  priests.  Then,  in  couples,  one  of  each 
couple  seizing  and  carrying  in  his  mouth  a 
snake,  they  began  to  circle  the  space  again. 
The  leading  couple  consisted  of  one  man  who 
had  his  arm  across  the  shoulder  of  another, 
while  this  second  man  held  in  his  teeth,  by  the 
upper  middle  of  its  body,  a  rattlesnake  four 
feet  long,  the  flat,  ace-of-clubs-shaped  head 
and  curving  neck  of  the  snake  being  almost 
against  the  man's  face.  Rattlesnakes,  bull- 
snakes,  ribbon-snakes,  all  were  carried  in  the 
same  way.  One  man  carried  at  the  same  time 
two  small  sidewinder  rattlesnakes  in  his  mouth. 
After  a  while  each  snake  was  thrown  on  the 
rock  and  soon  again  picked  up  and  held  in  the 
hand,  while  a  new  snake  was  held  in  the  mouth. 
Finally,  each  man  carried  a  bundle  of  snakes 
in  his  hand,  all  so  held  as  to  leave  the  head  free, 
so  that  the  snake  could  strike  if  it  wished. 
Most  of  the  snakes  showed  no  anger  or  resent 
ment.  But  occasionally  one,  usually  a  small 


THE   HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          93 

sidewinder,  half  coiled  or  rattled  when  thrown 
down;  and  in  picking  these  up  much  caution 
was  shown,  the  Indian  stroking  the  snake  with 
his  eagle  feathers  and  trying  to  soothe  it  and 
get  it  to  straighten  out;  and  if  it  refused  to  be 
soothed,  he  did  his  best  to  grasp  it  just  back  of 
the  head;  and  when  he  had  it  in  his  hand,  he 
continued  to  stroke  the  body  with  the  feathers, 
obviously  to  quiet  it.  But  whether  it  were 
angry  or  not,  he  always  in  the  end  grasped  and 
lifted  it  —  besides  keeping  it  from  crawling 
among  the  spectators.  Several  times  I  saw  the 
snakes  strike  at  the  men  who  were  carrying 
them,  and  twice  I  was  sure  they  struck  home  - 
once  a  man's  wrist,  once  his  finger.  Neither 
man  paid  any  attention  or  seemed  to  suffer  in 
any  way.  I  saw  no  man  struck  in  the  face; 
but  several  of  my  friends  had  at  previous  dances 
seen  men  so  struck.  In  one  case  the  man  soon 
showed  that  he  was  in  much  pain,  although  he 
continued  to  dance,  and  he  was  badly  sick  for 
days;  in  the  other  cases  no  bad  result  what 
ever  followed. 

At  last  all  the  snakes  were  in  the  hands  of 
the  dancers.  Then  all  were  thrown  at  the  foot 
of  the  natural  stone  pillar,  and  immediately, 
with  a  yell,  the  dancers  leaped  in,  seized,  each 
of  them,  several  snakes,  and  rushed  away,  east, 


94       A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

west,  north,  and  south,  dashing  over  the  edge 
of  the  cliff  and  jumping  like  goats  down  the 
precipitous  trails.  At  the  foot  of  the  cliff,  or 
on  the  plain,  they  dropped  the  snakes,  and  then 
returned  to  purify  themselves  by  drinking  and 
washing  from  pails  of  dark  sacred  water  - 
medicine  water  —  brought  by  the  women.  It 
was  a  strange  and  most  interesting  ceremony 
all  through. 

I  do  not  think  any  adequate  explanation  of 
the  immunity  of  the  dancers  has  been  ad 
vanced.  Perhaps  there  are  several  explana 
tions.  These  desert  rattlesnakes  are  not  nearly 
as  poisonous  as  the  huge  diamond-backs  of 
Florida  and  Texas;  their  poison  is  rarely  fatal. 
The  dancers  are  sometimes  bitten;  usually 
they  show  no  effects,  but,  as  above  said,  in  one 
instance  the  bitten  man  was  very  sick  for 
several  days.  It  has  been  said  that  the  fangs 
are  extracted;  but  even  in  this  case  the  poison 
would  be  loose  in  the  snake's  mouth  and  might 
get  in  the  skin  through  the  wounds  made  by 
the  other  teeth;  and  I  noticed  that  when  any 
snake,  usually  a  small  sidewinder,  showed  anger 
and  either  rattled  or  coiled,  much  caution  was 
shown  in  handling  it,  and  every  effort  made  to 
avoid  being  bitten.  It  is  also  asserted  that  the 
snakes  show  the  quiet  and  placid  indifference 


THE  HOPI   SNAKE-DANCE          95 

they  do  because  they  are  drugged,  and  one 
priest  told  me  they  are  given  "medicine"; 
but  I  have  no  idea  whether  this  is  true.  Nor 
do  I  know  whether  the  priests  themselves  take 
medicine.  I  believe  that  one  element  in  the 
matter  is  that  the  snake  priests  either  naturally 
possess  or  develop  the  same  calm  power  over 
these  serpents  that  certain  men  have  over  bees; 
the  latter  power,  the  existence  of  which  is  so 
well  known,  has  never  received  the  attention 
and  study  it  deserves.  An  occasional  white 
man  has  such  power  with  snakes.  There  was 
near  my  ranch  on  the  Little  Missouri,  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  a  man  who  had  this  power. 
He  was  a  rather  shiftless,  ignorant  man,  of  a 
common  frontier  type,  who  failed  at  about 
everything,  and  I  think  he  was  himself  surprised 
when  he  found  that  he  could  pick  up  and  handle 
rattlesnakes  with  impunity.  There  was  no  de 
ception  about  it.  I  would  take  him  off  on  horse 
back,  and  when  I  found  a  rattler  he  would 
quietly  pick  it  up  by  the  thick  part  of  the  body 
and  put  it  in  a  sack.  He  sometimes  made  move 
ments  with  his  hands  before  picking  up  a  coiled 
rattler;  but  when  he  had  several  in  a  bag  he 
would  simply  put  his  hand  in,  take  hold  of  a 
snake  anywhere,  and  draw  it  out.  I  can  under 
stand  the  snakes  being  soothed  and  quieted  by 


96       A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

the  matter-of-fact  calm  and  fearlessness  of  the 
priests  for  most  of  the  time ;  but  why  the  rattlers 
were  not  all  maddened  by  the  treatment  they 
received  at  the  washing  in  the  kiva,  and  again 
when  thrown  on  the  dance  rock,  I  cannot  under 
stand. 

That  night  we  motored  across  the  desert 
with  Mr.  Hubbell  to  his  house  and  store  at 
Ganado,  sixty  miles  away,  and  from  Ganado 
we  motored  to  Gallup,  and  our  holiday  was  at 
an  end.  Mr.  Hubbell  is  an  Indian  trader.  His 
Ganado  house,  right  out  in  the  bare  desert,  is 
very  comfortable  and  very  attractive,  and  he 
treats  all  comers  with  an  open-handed  hos 
pitality  inherited  from  pioneer  days.  He  has 
great  influence  among  the  Navajos,  and  his 
services  to  them  have  been  of  much  value. 
Every  ounce  of  his  influence  has  been  success 
fully  exerted  to  put  a  stop  to  gambling  and 
drinking;  his  business  has  been  so  managed 
as  to  be  an  important  factor  in  the  material 
and  moral  betterment  of  the  Indians  with  whom 
he  has  dealt.  And  he  has  been  the  able  cham 
pion  of  their  rights  wherever  these  rights  have 
been  menaced  from  any  outside  source. 

Arizona  and  New  Mexico  hold  a  wealth  of 
attraction  for  the  archaeologist,  the  anthro 
pologist,  and  the  lover  of  what  is  strange  and 


THE  HOPI  SNAKE-DANCE          97 

striking  and  beautiful  in  nature.  More  and 
more  they  will  attract  visitors  and  students 
and  holiday-makers.  That  part  of  northern 
Arizona  which  we  traversed  is  of  such  extraor 
dinary  interest  that  it  should  be  made  more 
accessible  by  means  of  a  government-built 
motor  road  from  Gallup  to  the  Grand  Canyon; 
a  road  from  which  branch  roads,  as  good  as 
those  of  Switzerland,  would  gradually  be  built 
to  such  points  as  the  Hopi  villages  and  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Natural  Bridge. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  RANCHLAND  OF  ARGENTINA  AND 
SOUTHERN  BRAZIL 

IN  the  fall  of  1913  I  enjoyed  a  glimpse  of 
the  ranch  country  of  southern  Brazil  and 
of  Argentina.  It  was  only  a  glimpse;  for 
I  was  bent  on  going  northward  into  the  vast 
wilderness  of  tropical  South  America.  I  had  no 
time  to  halt  in  the  grazing  country  of  temperate 
South  America,  which  is  no  longer  a  wilderness, 
but  a  land  already  feeling  the  sweep  of  the  mod 
ern  movement.  It  is  a  civilized  land,  already 
fairly  well  settled,  which  by  leaps  and  bounds  is 
becoming  thickly  settled;  a  region  which  at  the 
present  day  is  in  essentials  far  more  closely  kin  to 
the  plains  country,  which  in  temperate  North 
America  stretches  from  Hudson  Bay  to  the  Gulf, 
than  either  land  is  kin  to  what  each  was  even 
half  a  century  ago.  The  main  difference  is  that 
the  great  cow  country,  the  plains  country,  of 
North  America  was  peopled  only  by  savages 
when  the  white  pioneers  entered  it  in  the  nine 
teenth  century;  whereas  throughout  temperate 

98 


RANCHLANDS  99 

South  America  there  were  here  and  there  oases 
of  thin  settlement,  including  even  small,  stag 
nant  cities,  already  two  or  three  centuries  old. 
In  these  oases  people  wholly  or  partly  of  Euro 
pean  blood  had  gradually  developed  a  peculiar 
and  backward,  but  real,  semicivilization  of 
their  own.  This  quaint,  distinctive  social  cul 
ture  has  been,  or  is  now  being,  engulfed  by  the 
rising  tide  of  intensely  modern  internationalized 
material  development. 

Among  the  many  pleasant  memories  of  my 
visit  to  Argentina,  one  of  the  most  pleasant  is 
that  of  a  dinner  at  the  house  of  the  governor 
of  the  old  provincial  capital  of  Mendoza.  Our 
distinguished  host  came  of  an  old  country  family 
which  for  many  centuries  led  the  life  of  the 
great  cattle-breeding  ranch-owners,  although 
his  people  were  more  and  more  turning  their 
attention  to  agriculture,  he  himself  being  a 
successful  farmer,  as  well  as  an  invaluable 
public  servant  of  advanced  views.  His  father 
was  at  the  dinner.  He  had  retired  as  a  general 
after  forty-nine  years'  service  in  the  Argentine 
army.  The  fine  old  fellow  represented  what 
was  best  in  the  Argentine  type  before  the  days 
of  modern  industrialism.  A  very  vigorous  and 
manly  best  it  was,  too.  He  wore  the  old  Ar 
gentine  uniform,  which  for  his  rank  was  the 


100     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

same  as  the  uniform  once  worn  by  Napoleon's 
officers.  He  had  served  in  the  bloody  Para 
guayan  War,  when  Argentina,  Brazil,  and  Uru 
guay  joined  to  overthrow  the  inconceivably 
murderous  dictatorship  of  Lopez,  and  when  the 
Paraguayans  rallied  with  savage  valor  under 
the  banner  of  the  dictator,  who  tyrannized  over 
them,  but  who  nevertheless  represented  in  their 
eyes  the  nation.  This  old  general  had  served 
in  many  Indian  wars,  both  in  Patagonia  and 
in  the  Grand  Chaco,  and  had  seen  desperate 
fighting  in  the  civil  wars.  He  wore  medals 
commemorating  his  services  in  the  Paraguayan 
and  Indian  campaigns,  but  he  would  not  wear 
any  medals  commemorating  his  services  in  the 
civil  wars.  Yet  the  only  time  he  was  wounded 
was  in  one  of  the  battles  in  one  of  these  civil 
wars.  He  was  then  shot  twice  and  received  a 
bayonet  thrust,  and  was  also  stabbed  with  a 
h!nce.  If  he  had  not  possessed  a  constitution  of 
iron  he  would  never  have  survived.  Our  people 
in  the  United  States  often  speak  of  these  South 
American  wars  with  the  same  ignorant  lack  of 
appreciation  that  used  to  be  shown  by  Euro 
pean  military  men  in  speaking  of  our  own  Civil 
War  and  other  contests.  This  attitude  is  as 
foolish  on  our  part  in  the  one  case  as  it  was 
foolish  on  the  part  of  the  Europeans  in  question 


RANCHLANDS  1D1 

in  the  other  case.  The  South  American  Indian 
fighting  was  of  the  same  hazardous  character, 
and  the  Indian  campaigns  were  fraught  with 
the  same  wearing  fatigue,  and  marked  by  the 
same  risk  and  wild  adventure,  as  in  the  case  of 
our  own  Indian  campaigns.  In  the  Argentine 
civil  wars,  and  in  the  Paraguayan  War,  as  in 
the  wars  which  the  Chileans  have  waged,  the 
fighting  was,  on  the  whole,  rather  more  des 
perate  than  in  any  contest  between  the  civilized 
nations  of  Europe  from  the  close  of  the  Na 
poleonic  struggles  to  the  opening  of  the  present 
gigantic  contest.  There  is  no  more  formidable 
fighting  material  in  the  world  than  is  afforded 
by  certain  elements  in  the  populations  of  some 
of  these  Latin-American  countries.  The  gen 
eral  of  whom  I  am  speaking  was  himself  a  most 
interesting  example  of  a  vanishing  type.  Lovers 
of  good  literature  should  read  the  sketches 
of  old-time  Argentine  life  in  Hudson's  "El 
Ombu."  When  they  have  done  so,  they  will 
understand  the  strength  and  the  ruthlessness 
which  produced  leaders  of  the  stamp  of  the 
scarred  and  war-hardened  veteran  who  in  full 
general's  uniform  met  us  at  dinner  at  the  house 
of  his  son,  the  governor  of  Mendoza. 

The   old-time  conditions  of  gaucho  civiliza 
tion  that  produced  these  wild  and  formidable 


102     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

fighting  men,  who  fought  as  they  lived,  on  the 
backs  of  their  horses,  have  vanished  as  utterly 
as  our  own  Far  West  of  the  days  of  Kit  Carson. 
The  Argentine  country  life  has  changed  as  com 
pletely  as  the  Argentine  city  life.  They  are 
gone,  those  long  years  during  which  the  gaucho 
rode  over  unfenced  plains  after  gaunt  cattle, 
and  warred  against  the  scarcely  wilder  Indians 
writh  whom  he  vied  in  horsemanship  and  plains- 
craft  and  hardihood  and  from  whom  he  bor 
rowed  that  strange  weapon,  the  bolas.  Even 
the  southern  Andes  of  what  was  once  Patagonia 
are  unexplored  only  in  the  sense  that  the  Rockies 
of  Alberta  are  not  yet  completely  explored. 
Much  of  the  former  ranch  country  is  now  wheat- 
land,  where  the  workmen  of  foreign,  especially 
Italian,  origin  far  outnumber  the  men  of  old 
Hispano-Indian  stock.  Great  cattle-ranches  re 
main;  but  they  are  handled  substantially  like 
great  modern  ranches  in  our  own  Southwest, 
and  the  blooded  horses  and  high-grade  cattle  are 
kept  in  large,  fenced  pastures.  In  most  places 
the  gaucho  has  changed  as  our  own  cowboy  has 
changed.  He  is  as  bold  and  good  a  horseman  as 
ever;  but  it  is  only  in  out-of-the-way  places  that 
he  retains  all  his  old-time  wild  and  individual 
picturesqueness.  Elsewhere  he  is  now  merely 
an  unusually  capable  ranch -hand.  His  em- 


RANCHLANDS  103 

ployer  has  changed  even  more.  The  big  hand 
some  ranch-houses  are  fitted  with  every  modern 
comfort  and  luxury,  and  the  owners  belong  in 
all  ways  to  the  internationalized  upper  class 
of  the  world  of  to-day.  The  interest  attaching 
to  a  visit  to  one  of  these  civilized  ranches  is 
that  which  attaches  to  a  visit  to  a  fine  modern 
stock-farm  anywhere,  whether  in  Hungary  or 
Kentucky  or  Victoria. 

But  there  is  one  vital  point  —  the  vital  point 
-  in  which  the  men  and  women  of  these  ranch- 
houses,  like  those  of  the  South  America  that  I 
visited  generally,  are  striking  examples  to  us  of 
the  English-speaking  countries  both  of  North 
America  and  Australia.  The  families  are  large. 
The  women,  charming  and  attractive,  are  good 
and  fertile  mothers  in  all  classes  of  society. 
There  are  no  symptoms  of  that  artificially  self- 
produced  dwindling  of  population  which  is  by 
far  the  most  threatening  symptom  in  the  social 
life  of  the  United  States,  Canada,  and  the  Aus 
tralian  commonwealths.  The  nineteenth  century 
saw  a  prodigious  growth  of  the  English-speak 
ing,  relative  to  the  Spanish-speaking,  population 
of  the  new  worlds  west  of  the  Atlantic  and  in 
the  Southern  Pacific.  The  end  of  the  twentieth 
century  will  see  this  completely  reversed  unless 
the  present  ominous  tendencies  as  regards  the 


104     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

birth-rate  are  reversed.  A  race  is  worthless  and 
contemptible  if  its  men  cease  to  be  willing  and 
able  to  work  hard  and,  at  need,  to  fight  hard, 
and  if  its  women  cease  to  breed  freely.  I  am 
not  speaking  of  pauper  families  with  excessive 
numbers  of  ill-nourished  and  badly  brought  up 
children;  I  am  well  aware  that,  like  most  wise 
and  good  principles,  this  which  I  advocate  can 
be  carried  to  a  mischievous  excess;  but  it 
nevertheless  remains  true  that  voluntary  steril 
ity  among  married  men  and  women  of  good 
life  is,  even  more  than  military  or  physical 
cowardice  in  the  ordinary  man,  the  capital 
sin  of  civilization,  whether  in  France  or  Scan 
dinavia,  New  England  or  New  Zealand.  If 
the  best  classes  do  not  reproduce  themselves 
the  nation  will  of  course  go  down;  for  the  real 
question  is  encouraging  the  fit,  and  discouraging 
the  unfit,  to  survive.  When  the  ordinary  decent 
man  does  not  understand  that  to  marry  the 
woman  he  loves,  as  early  as  he  can,  is  the  most 
desirable  of  all  goals,  the  most  successful  of  all 
forms  of  life  entitled  to  be  called  really  success 
ful;  when  the  ordinary  woman  does  not  under 
stand  that  all  other  forms  of  life  are  but  make 
shift  and  starveling  substitutes  for  the  life  of 
the  happy  wife,  the  mother  of  a  fair-sized 
family  of  healthy  children;  then  the  state  is 


RANCHLANDS  105 

rotten  at  heart.    The  loss  of  a  healthy,  vigorous,^! 
natural   sexual   instinct   is   fatal;     and   just   as    \ 
much  so  if  the  loss  is  by  disuse  and  atrophy  as    1 
if  it  is  by  abuse  and  perversion.     Whether  the    1 
man,   in   the   exercise   of   one   form   of   selfish-^"" 
ness,   leads   a   life   of  easy  self-indulgence  and 
celibate  profligacy;    or  whether  in  the  exercise 
of  a  colder  but  no  less  repulsive  selfishness,  he 
sacrifices  what  is  highest  to  some  form  of  mere 
material  achievement  in  accord  with  the  base 
proverb  that  "he  travels  farthest  who  travels 
alone";    or   whether   the   sacrifice   is   made   in 
the  name  of  the  warped  and  diseased  conscience 
of  asceticism;    the  result  is  equally  evil.     So, 
likewise,  with  the  woman.     In  many  modern 
novels  there  is  portrayed  a  type  of  cold,  selfish, 
sexless   woman    who   plumes   herself   on   being 
"respectable,"  but  who  is  really  a  rather  less 
desirable  member  of  society  than  a  prostitute. 
Unfortunately    the    portrayal    is    true    to    life. 
The  woman  who  shrinks  from  motherhood  is 
as  low  a  creature  as  a  man  of  the  professional 
pacificist,    or    poltroon,    type,    who    shirks    his 
duty  as  a  soldier.    The  only  full  life  for  man  or^ 
woman  is  led  by  those  men  and  women  who 
together,  with  hearts  both  gentle  and  valiant, 
face  lives  of  love  and  duty,  who  see  their  chil 
dren  rise  up  to  call  them  blessed  and  who  leave 


106     A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

behind  them  their  seed  to  inherit  the  earth. 
Dealing  with  averages,  it  is  the  bare  truth  to 
say  that  no  celibate  life  approaches  such  a  life 
in  point  of  usefulness,  no  matter  what  the  mo 
tive  for  the  celibacy  -  -  religious,  philanthropic, 
political,  or  professional.  The  mother  comes 
ahead  of  the  nun  —  and  also  of  the  settlement 
or  hospital  worker;  and  if  either  man  or  woman 
must  treat  a  profession  as  a  substitute  for,  in 
stead  of  as  an  addition  to  or  basis  for,  marriage, 
then  by  all  means  the  profession  or  other 
"career"  should  be  abandoned.  It  is  of  course 
not  possible  to  lay  down  universal  rules.  There 
must  be  exceptions.  But  the  rule  must  be  as 
above  given.  In  a  community  which  is  at  peace 
there  may  be  a  few  women  or  a  few  men  who 
for  good  reasons  do  not  marry,  and  who  do 
excellent  work  nevertheless;  just  as  in  a  com 
munity  which  is  at  war,  there  may  be  a  few 
men  who  for  good  reasons  do  not  go  out  as 
soldiers.  But  if  the  average  woman  does  not 
marry  and  become  the  mother  of  enough 
healthy  children  to  permit  the  increase  of  the 
race;  and  if  the  average  man  does  not,  above 
all  other  things,  wish  to  marry  in  time  of  peace, 
and  to  do  his  full  duty  in  war  if  the  need  arises, 
then  the  race  is  decadent,  and  should  be  swept 
aside  to  make  room  for  one  that  is  better.  Only 


RANCHLANDS  107 

that  nation  has  a  future  whose  sons  and  daugh 
ters  recognize  and  obey  the  primary  laws  of 
their  racial  being. 

In  these  essentials  Argentina,  Chile,  Uru 
guay,  and  Brazil  have  far  more  to  teach  than 
to  learn  from  the  English-speaking  countries 
which  are  so  proud  of  their  abounding  material 
prosperity  and  of  their  wide-spread,  but  super 
ficial,  popular  education  and  intelligence.  In 
this  same  material  prosperity,  and  in  many 
other  matters,  Argentina  much  resembles  our 
own  country.  Brazil  is  travelling  a  similar 
path,  although  much  more  slowly;  and  al 
though  its  climate  is  not  so  good,  its  natural 
resources  are  vaster  and  will  in  the  present 
century  undergo  an  extraordinary  development. 
Very  much  of  the  Brazilian  country  from  Sao 
Paulo  to  the  Uruguayan  frontier  is  essentially 
like  Argentina.  The  city  life  and  the  ranch 
life  are  advancing  in  much  the  same  fashion; 
although  of  course  there  are  sharp  differences 
in  culture  and  habits  of  thought  and  life  be 
tween  the  great  Spanish-speaking  and  great 
Portuguese-speaking  republics  which  are  such 
close,  and  not  wholly  friendly,  neighbors. 

One  point  of  similarity  is  the  number  of  im 
migrants  in  each  country.  In  our  journey 
southward  from  Sao  Paulo  we  found  both  towns 


108     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  stretches  of  ranchland  in  which  Germans, 
Italians,  and  Catholic,  Orthodox,  or  Uniate 
Slavs,  were  important,  and  sometimes  pre 
ponderant,  elements  of  the  population.  There 
were  German  Lutheran  churches  and  also  con 
gregations  of  native  Protestants  started  by 
American  missionaries;  for  Brazil,  like  Ar 
gentina  and  the  United  States,  enjoys  genuine 
religious  liberty. 

This  rich  and  beautiful  country  of  southern 
Brazil  is  part  of  the  last  great  stretch  of  coun 
try —  south -temperate  America  —  which  remains 
in  either  temperate  zone  open  to  white  settle 
ment  on  a  large  scale;  the  last  great  stretch 
of  scantily  peopled  land  with  a  good  climate 
and  fertile  soil  to  which  white  immigration  can 
go  in  mass. 

Of  part  of  tropical  Brazil  I  have  written 
elsewhere,  and  I  allude  to  it  elsewhere  in  this 
book.  Here  I  am  speaking  not  of  the  tropical 
but  of  the  temperate  country. 

Portions  of  temperate  Brazil  are  open  prairie, 
portions  are  forest.  The  climate  is  never  very 
hot,  nor  is  there  ever  severe  cold.  The  colo 
nists  with  whom  I  conversed  had  not  found  the 
insects  specially  troublesome;  not  much  more, 
and  in  places  rather  less,  troublesome  than  in 
Louisiana  and  Texas.  There  was  no  more  sick- 


RANCHLANDS  109 

ness  than  in  the  early  days  in  the  West.  The 
general  effect  in  the  forest  country,  while  of 
course  the  species  of  plants  are  entirely  differ 
ent,  reminds  the  observer  of  the  Louisiana  and 
Mississippi  cane-brake  lands  and  the  country 
along  the  Nueces.  The  activities  of  the  set 
tlers  in  the  open  country  are  substantially  those 
with  which  I  was  familiar  thirty  years  ago  in 
the  cattle  country  of  the  West.  In  the  forests 
one  is  reminded  more  of  early  days  on  the 
Ohio,  the  Yazoo,  and  the  Red  River  of  the 
South. 

Certainly  this  is  a  country  with  a  wonderful 
future.  It  offers  fine  opportunities  for  settlers 
who  desire  with  the  labor  of  their  own  hands 
to  make  homes  for  themselves  and  their  chil 
dren.  This  does  not  mean  that  all  people  who 
go  there  will  prosper,  or  that  success  will  come 
save  at  the  price  of  labor  and  effort,  of  risk  and 
hardship.  If  any  Americans  have  forgotten 
how  our  own  West  in  the  pioneer  days  appealed 
to  an  observer  who  was  friendly,  but  who  had 
not  the  faintest  glimmering  of  the  pioneer 
spirit,  let  them  read  "Martin  Chuzzlewit." 
Dickens  represented  the  numerous  men  who 
foolishly  hope  to  enjoy  pioneer  triumphs  and 
yet  escape  pioneer  risks  and  hardships  and  the 
unlovely  and  wearing  toil  which  is  the  essential 


110     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

prerequisite  to  the  triumph;  and  every  one 
should  remember  that  in  a  new  country,  which 
opens  a  chance  of  success  to  the  settler,  there 
always  goes  with  this  the  chance  of  heart-break 
ing  failure.  Brazil  offers  remarkable  openings 
for  settlers  who  have  the  toughness  of  the  born 
pioneer,  and  for  certain  business  men  and  en 
gineers  who  have  the  mixture  of  daring  enter 
prise  and  sound  common  sense  needed  by  those 
who  push  the  industrial  development  of  new 
countries.  Both  classes  have  great  opportuni 
ties,  and  both  need  to  be  perpetually  on  their 
guard  against  the  swindlers  and  the  crack- 
brained  enthusiasts  who  are  always  sure  to  turn 
up  in  connection  with  any  country  of  large 
developmental  possibilities.  On  the  frontier, 
more  than  anywhere  else,  a  man  needs  to  be 
able  to  rely  on  himself  and  to  remember  that 
on  every  frontier  there  are  innumerable  failures. 
No  man  can  be  guaranteed  success.  Men 
who  are  not  prepared  for  labor  and  effort  and 
rough  living,  for  persistence  and  self-denial,  are 
out  of  place  in  a  new  country;  and  foolish  peo 
ple  who  will  probably  fail  anywhere  are  more 
certain  to  fail  badly  in  a  new  country  than  any 
where  else.  During  the  whole  period  of  the 
marvellous  growth  of  the  United  States  there 
has  been  a  constant  and  uninterrupted  stream 


RANCHLANDS  111 

of  failure  going  side  by  side  with  the  larger 
stream  of  success.  Unless  there  is  revolution 
ary  disorder  and  anarchy,  the  future  holds  for 
southern  Brazil  much  what  half  a  century  ago 
the  future  held  for  large  portions  of  our  country 
lying  west  of  the  Mississippi. 

In  southern  Brazil  the  forest  landscape 
through  which  we  passed  was  very  beautiful. 
The  most  conspicuous  tree  in  the  forest  was  the 
flat-topped  pine,  the  shaft  of  which  rose  like 
that  of  a  royal  palm.  The  branches  spread 
out  at  the  top  just  where  the  palm-leaves 
spread  out  on  the  palm,  only  instead  of  droop 
ing  they  curved  upward  like  the  branches  of  a 
candelabra.  There  were  many  other  trees  in 
the  forests  which  I  could  not  recognize  or  place. 
Some  of  them  looked  like  our  Southern  live- 
oaks.  Then  there  were  palms,  and  multitudes 
of  big  tree-ferns.  In  places  where  these  tree- 
ferns  grew  thickly  among  the  tall,  strange  can 
delabra  pines,  with  palms  scattered  here  and 
there,  and  other  queer  ancient  tropical  plants, 
the  landscape  looked  as  if  it  had  come  out  of 
the  carboniferous  period  —  at  least  as  the  car 
boniferous  period  was  represented  in  the  at 
tractive  popular  geologies  of  my  youth.  There 
were  flowers  in  the  woods,  of  brilliant  and 
varied  hue,  although  we  saw  but  few  orchids; 


112     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  in  the  glades  or  spots  of  open  prairie  there 
were  immense  patches  of  lilac  and  blue  blos 
soms.  The  flowering  trees  were  wonderful. 
On  some  the  blooms  were  blue,  on  others  yel 
low.  The  most  beautiful  of  all  flamed  brilliant 
scarlet.  The  trees  that  bore  them,  when  scat 
tered  over  hillsides  that  sloped  steeply  to  the 
brink  of  some  rushing  river,  made  splashes  of 
burning  red  against  the  wet  and  vivid  green 
of  the  subtropical  foliage.  As  we  got  farther 
south  I  was  told  that  there  were  occasional 
sharp  frosts,  but  that  the  low  temperature 
never  lasted  for  more  than  an  hour  or  so.  In 
answer  to  a  question  as  to  how  these  rare, 
short  frosts  affected  such  plants  as  palms  and 
tree-ferns,  it  was  explained  to  me  that  the  frosts 
prevented  coffee  being  grown,  but  that  they 
had  no  effect  on  the  palms,  and,  rather  curi 
ously,  no  effect  on  the  tree-ferns  if  they  were 
under  big  forest  trees,  but  that  if  they  were  in 
the  open  the  fronds  were  killed,  the  trees 
themselves  not  being  injured,  and  new  fronds 
taking  the  place  of  the  old  ones. 

In  the  open  prairie  country  of  the  state  of 
Parana  we  stopped  at  Morungava  to  visit  the 
ranch  of  the  Brazil  Land,  Cattle,  and  Packing 
Company.  Our  host,  the  head  of  this  com 
pany,  Murdo  Mackenzie,  for  many  years  one  of 


RANCHLANDS  113 

the  best-known  cattlemen  in  our  own  Western 
cow  country,  was  an  old  friend  of  mine.  Dur 
ing  my  term  as  President  he  was,  on  the  whole, 
the  most  influential  of  the  Western  cattle- 
growers.  He  was  a  leader  of  the  far-seeing 
and  enlightened  element.  He  was  a  most 
powerful  supporter  of  the  government  in  the 
fight  for  the  conservation  of  our  natural  re 
sources,  for  the  utilization  without  waste  of  our 
forests  and  pastures,  for  honest  treatment  of 
everybody,  and  for  the  shaping  of  governmental 
policy  primarily  in  the  interest  of  the  small  set 
tler,  the  home-maker. 

We  rode  first  to  Mackenzie's  home  ranch, 
about  a  mile  from  the  railway,  and  then  to  an 
outlying  set  of  ranch  buildings  ten  miles  off. 
At  the  home  ranch  were  the  American  fore 
man  and  his  American  wife  and  their  children. 
The  buildings  and  the  food  and  the  whole  life 
were  typical  of  all  that  was  best  in  the  old- 
time  "Far  West,"  in  the  days  when  I  knew  it 
as  a  cattle  country.  We  were  given  a  most 
delicious  and  purely  American  lunch,  including 
all  the  fresh  milk  we  could  drink;  and  the  fore 
man  himself  piloted  us  over  the  immense 
stretches  of  rolling  country,  and  in  every  ac 
tion  showed  himself  the  born  cattleman,  the 
born  and  trained  stockman.  Half  of  the  em- 


114     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

ployees  were  men  from  the  Western  ranches, 
from  Montana,  Colorado,  Texas,  or  elsewhere; 
and  they  and  the  stock  and  the  vast,  pleasant, 
open-air  country  were  enough  to  make  any 
man  feel  at  home  who  had  ever  lived  in  the 
West.  The  children  round  the  ranch-house 
were  already  speaking  fluent  Portuguese! 

There  were  Indians  in  the  neighborhood;  but 
we  saw  none,  for  they  are  very  shy  and  dwell 
in  the  timber.  Although  nominally  Christian, 
and  somewhat  under  the  influence  of  the  priests, 
they  are  otherwise  entirely  outside  of  govern 
mental  control.  At  first  Mackenzie's  cattle 
were  sometimes  killed  by  the  wild,  furtive  crea 
tures;  but  he  stopped  this  by  a  mixture  of  firm 
ness  and  fair  treatment. 

It  was  a  beautiful  country,  well  watered, 
with  good  grass  and  much  timber.  I  was  as 
sured  by  both  the  men  on  the  ranch  and  their 
wives  that  the  climate  was  better  than  that  of 
our  own  Western  cattle  country,  for  the  heat 
is  not  as  extreme  as  during  summer  in  the 
southern  part  of  our  country,  and  the  winters 
are  mild,  with  only  occasional  touches  of  frost. 
Much  care  has  to  be  shown  in  dealing  with  the 
ticks  and  certain  other  insect  plagues,  but  not 
materially  more  than  in  some  of  our  own  South 
ern  regions.  While  we  were  at  the  outlying 


RANCHLANDS  115 

ranch  we  saw  the  cattle  being  dipped  in  familiar 
ranch  fashion. 

Cattle,  horses,  and  hogs  all  thrive.  All  the 
native  stock  offers  material  on  which  to  im 
prove.  The  company  is  carefully  breeding  up 
ward,  following  precisely  the  same  course  which 
in  Texas,  for  instance,  has  effected  a  complete 
substitution  of  graded  beef  and  dairy  cattle  for 
the  old  longhorns.  The  native  cattle  are  very 
distinctly  better  than  the  old  Texan  cattle  - 
the  native  Mexican  cattle.  The  Durham  and 
Hereford  bulls  introduced  from  the  States  will 
in  a  very  few  years  completely  change  the 
character  of  the  herds.  Good  cows  are  kept 
in  sufficient  numbers  to  insure  a  constant  sup 
ply  of  the  breeding  bulls.  In  the  same  way 
Berkshire  boars  are  being  crossed  with  the  na 
tive  pigs,  and  blooded  stallions  with  the  native 
mares.  In  short,  everything  is  being  done  ex 
actly  as  on  our  advanced  and  successful  ranches 
at  home.  The  country  is  still  largely  vacant, 
and  opportunities  for  development  will  be  al 
most  limitless  for  at  least  another  generation. 

Aside  from  the  extreme  interest  of  seeing  the 
ranch  itself,  the  twenty-mile  ride  was  most  en 
joyable.  The  country  was  like  our  own  plains 
near  the  foothills  of  the  Rockies,  except  that 
there  was  more  water  and  a  greater  variety  of 


116     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

timber.  The  most  striking  trees  were  the  occa 
sional  peculiar  flat- top  pines,  and  there  were 
also  other  and  very  beautiful  pines  through 
which  the  wind  sang  mournfully;  and  there 
were  many  flowers.  In  one  place  we  saw  a 
small  prairie  deer,  and  in  galloping  we  had  to 
keep  a  lookout  for  armadillo  burrows,  just  as 
we  keep  a  lookout  for  prairie-dog  holes  in  the 
West.  The  birds  were  strange  and  interesting, 
some  of  them  with  beautiful  voices.  Out  on 
the  plains  were  screamers,  noisy  birds,  as  big 
as  African  bustards.  One  sparrow  sang  loudly, 
at  midday,  round  the  corrals  where  we  dis 
mounted  for  lunch.  He  was  a  confiding,  pretty 
little  fellow,  with  head  markings  somewhat  like 
those  of  our  white-crowned  and  white-throated 
sparrows.  He  sang  better  than  the  former, 
and  not  as  well  as  the  latter. 

The  horses  were  good,  and  we  thoroughly 
enjoyed  our  afternoon  canter  back  to  the  home 
ranch,  when  the  shadows  had  begun  to  lengthen. 
We  loped  across  the  rolling  grass-land  and  by 
the  groves  of  strange  trees,  through  the  brilliant 
weather.  Under  us  the  horses  thrilled  with  life; 
it  was  a  country  of  vast  horizons;  we  felt  the 
promise  of  the  future  of  the  land  across  which 
we  rode. 


CHAPTER  V 
A  CHILEAN  RONDEO 

ON  November  21,  1913,  we  crossed  the 
Andes  into  Chile  by  rail.  The  railway 
led  up  the  pass  which,  used  from  time 
immemorial  by  the  Indians,  afterward  marked 
the  course  of  traffic  for  their  Spanish  successors, 
and  was  traversed  by  the  army  of  San  Martin  in 
the  hazardous  march  that  enabled  him  to  strike 
the  decisive  blows  in  the  war  for  South  Ameri 
can  independence.  The  valleys  were  gray  and 
barren,  the  sides  of  the  towering  mountains 
were  bare,  the  landscape  was  one  of  desolate 
grandeur.  To  the  north  the  stupendous  peak 
of  Aconquija  rose  in  its  snows. 

On  the  Chilean  side,  as  we  descended,  we 
passed  a  lovely  lake,  and  went  through  wonder 
ful  narrow  gorges;  and  farther  down  were  trees, 
and  huge  cactus,  and  flowers  of  many  colors. 
Then  we  reached  the  lower  valleys  and  the 
plains;  and  the  change  was  like  magic.  Sud 
denly  we  were  in  a  rich  fairy -land  of  teeming 
plenty  and  beauty,  a  land  of  fertile  fields  and 

117 


118     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

shady  groves,  a  land  of  grain  and,  above  all, 
of  many  kinds  of  luscious  fruits. 

As  in  the  Argentine  and  Brazil,  every  courtesy 
and  hospitality  was  shown  us  in  Chile.  We 
enjoyed  every  experience  throughout  our  stay. 
One  of  the  pleasantest  and  most  interesting 
days  we  passed  was  at  a  great  ranch,  a  great 
cattle-farm  and  country  place  twenty-five  or 
thirty  miles  from  Santiago.  It  was  some  fifteen 
miles  from  the  railway  station.  The  road  led 
through  a  rich,  fertile  country  largely  under 
tillage,  but  also  largely  consisting  of  great 
fenced  pastures. 

The  owners  of  the  ranch,  our  kind  and  cour 
teous  hosts,  had  summoned  all  the  riders  of 
the  neighborhood  to  attend  the  rondeo  (round 
up  and  sports),  and  several  hundred,  perhaps 
a  thousand,  came.  With  the  growth  of  cul 
tivation  of  the  soil  and  the  introduction  of  im 
proved  methods  of  stock-breeding  in  Chile,  the 
old  rude  life  of  the  wild  cow-herders  is  passing 
rapidly  away.  But  in  many  places  it  remains 
in  modified  form,  and  the  country  folk  whose 
business  is  pastoral  form  a  striking  and  dis 
tinctive  class.  These  countrymen  live  their 
lives  in  the  saddle.  All  these  men,  whose  in 
dustries  are  connected  with  cattle,  are  known 
as  huasos.  They  are  kin  to  the  Argentine 


A   CHILEAN  RONDEO  119 

gauchos9  and  more  remotely  to  our  own  cow 
boys. 

As  we  neared  the  ranch,  slipping  down  broad, 
dusty,  tree-bordered  roads  beside  which  irri 
gation  streams  ran,  we  began  to  come  across 
the  huasos  gathering  for  the  sports.  They  rode 
singly  and  by  twos  and  threes,  or  in  parties  of 
fifteen  or  twenty.  They  were  on  native  Chilean 
horses  —  stocky,  well-built  beasts,  hardy  and 
enduring,  and  on  the  whole  docile.  Almost  all 
the  men  wore  the  light  mania,  less  heavy  than 
the  serapi,  but  like  it  in  shape,  the  head  of  the 
rider  being  thrust  through  a  hole  in  the  middle. 
It  would  seem  as  though  it  might  interfere  with 
the  free  use  of  their  arms,  but  it  does  not,  and 
at  the  subsequent  cattle  sports  many  of  the 
participants  never  took  off  their  manias.  The 
riders  wore  straw  hats  of  various  types,  but 
none  of  them  with  the  sugar-loaf  cones  of  the 
Mexicans.  Their  long  spurs  bore  huge  rowels. 
The  manias  were  not  only  picturesque,  but  gave 
the  company  a  look  of  diversified  and  gaudy 
brilliancy,  for  they  were  of  all  possible  colors, 
green,  red,  brown,  and  blue,  solid  and  patterned. 
The  saddles  were  far  forward,  and  the  shoe- 
shaped  wooden  stirrups  were  elaborately  carved. 

The  men  were  fine-looking  fellows,  some  with 
smooth  faces  or  mustaches,  some  with  beards, 


120     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

some  of  them  light,  most  of  them  dark.  They 
rode  their  horses  with  the  utter  ease  found  only 
in  those  who  are  born  to  the  saddle.  Now  and 
then  there  were  family  parties,  mother  and 
children,  all,  down  to  the  smallest,  riding  their 
own  horses  or  perhaps  all  going  in  a  wagon. 
Once  or  twice  we  passed  horsemen  who  were 
coming  out  of  the  yards  of  their  tumble-down 
houses,  women  and  children  crowding  round. 
Generally  the  women  had  something  in  the 
dress  that  reminded  one  more  or  less  of  our 
Southwestern  semicivilized  Indians,  and  the 
strain  of  Indian  blood  in  both  men  and  women 
was  evident.  Some  of  the  men  were  poorly 
clad,  others  had  paid  much  attention  to  their 
get-up  and  looked  like  very  efficient  dandies; 
but  in  its  essentials  the  dress  was  always  the 
same. 

When  we  reached  the  ranch  we  first  drove 
to  a  mass  of  buildings,  which  included  the 
barns,  branding-pens,  corrals,  and  the  like. 
It  was  here  that  the  horsemen  had  gathered, 
and  one  of  the  pens  was  filled  with  an  uneasy 
mass  of  cattle.  Not  far  from  this  pen  was  a 
big  hitching  rail  or  bar,  very  stout,  consisting 
of  tree  trunks  at  least  a  foot  in  diameter,  the 
total  length  of  the  rail  being  forty  or  fifty  feet. 
Beside  it  was  a  very  large  and  stout  corral. 


A   CHILEAN  RONDEO  121 

The  inside  of  this  corral  was  well  padded  with 
poles,  making  a  somewhat  springy  wall,  a 
feature  I  have  never  seen  in  any  corrals  in  our 
own  ranch  country,  but  essential  where  the 
horses  are  trained  to  jam  the  cattle  against  the 
corral  side. 

Most  of  the  sports  took  place  inside  this 
big  corral.  Gates  led  into  it  from  opposite 
ends.  Some  thirty  or  forty  feet  in  front  of 
one  of  the  gates,  and  just  about  that  distance 
from  the  middle  of  the  corral,  was  a  short, 
crescent-shaped  fence  which  served  to  keep  the 
stock  that  had  yet  to  be  worked  separate 
from  those  that  had  been  worked.  Proceed 
ings  were  begun  by  some  thirty  riders  and  a 
mob  of  cattle  coming  through  one  of  the  doors 
of  the  corral.  A  glance  at  the  cattle  was  enough 
to  show  that  the  old  days  of  the  wild  ranches 
had  passed.  These  were  not  longhorns,  staring, 
vicious  creatures,  shy  and  fleet  as  deer;  they 
were  graded  stock,  domestic  in  their  ways, 
and  rather  reluctant  to  run.  Among  the  riders, 
however,  there  was  not  the  slightest  falling  off 
from  the  old  dash  and  skill,  and  their  very  air, 
as  they  rode  quietly  in,  and  the  way  they  sat 
every  sudden,  quick  move  of  their  horses 
showed  their  complete  ease  and  self-confidence. 

In  addition  to  the  huasos,  the  peasants-on- 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

horseback,  the  riders  included  several  of  the 
gentry,  the  great  landed  proprietors.  These 
took  part  in  the  sports,  precisely  as  in  our  own 
land  men  of  the  corresponding  class  follow  the 
hounds  or  play  polo.  Two  of  the  most  skilful 
and  daring  riders,  who  always  worked  together, 
were  a  wealthy  neighboring  ranchman  and  his 
son. 

The  first  feat  began  by  two  of  the  horsemen, 
acting  together,  cutting  out  an  animal  from 
the  bunch.  This  was  done  with  skill  and  pre 
cision,  but  differed  in  no  way  from  the  work  I 
used  formerly  to  see  and  take  part  in  on  the 
Little  Missouri.  What  followed,  however,  was 
totally  different.  The  animal  was  raced  by  the 
two  men  out  from  the  herd  and  from  behind 
the  little  semicircular  fence,  and  was  taken 
at  full  speed  round  the  edge  of  the  great  corral 
past  the  closed  gate  on  the  other  side,  and  al 
most  back  to  the  starting-point.  One  horse 
man  rode  behind  the  animal,  a  little  on  its 
inner  side.  The  other  rode  outside  it,  the 
horse's  head  abreast  of  the  steer's  flank.  As 
they  galloped  the  riders  uttered  strange,  long- 
drawn  cries,  evidently  of  Indian  origin.  Round 
the  corral  rushed  the  steer,  and,  after  it  passed 
the  door  on  the  opposite  side  and  began  to 
return  toward  its  starting-point  and  saw  the 


A  CHILEAN  RONDEO  123 

other  cattle  ahead,  it  put  on  speed.  Then  the 
outside  rider  raced  forward  and  at  the  same 
moment  wheeled  inward,  pinning  the  steer  be 
hind  the  horns  and  either  by  the  neck  or  shoulder 
against  the  rough,  yielding  boughs  with  which 
the  corral  was  lined.  Instantly  the  other  horse 
man  pressed  the  steer's  hind  quarters  outward, 
so  that  it  found  itself  not  only  checked,  but 
turned  in  the  opposite  direction.  Again  it  was 
urged  into  a  gallop,  the  calling  horsemen  fol 
lowing  and  repeating  their  performance.  The 
steer  was  thus  turned  three  times.  After  the 
third  turning  the  gate  which  it  had  passed  was 
opened  and  it  trotted  out. 

A  dozen  times  different  pairs  of  riders  per 
formed  the  feat  with  different  steers.  It  was  a 
fine  exhibition  of  daring  prowess  and  of  good 
training  in  both  the  horses  and  the  riders.  Of 
course,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  lining  of  the 
inner  fence  with  limber  poles  the  steer  would 
have  been  killed  or  crippled  -  -  we  saw  one  of 
them  injured,  as  it  was.  The  horse,  which 
entered  heartily  into  the  spirit  of  the  chase, 
had  to  crash  straight  into  the  fence,  nailing  the 
steer  and  bringing  it  to  a  standstill  in  the  midst 
of  its  headlong  gallop.  Once  or  twice  at  the 
critical  moment  the  rider  was  not  able  to  charge 
quickly  enough;  and  when  the  steer  was  caught 


124     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

too  far  back  it  usually  made  its  escape  and  re 
joined  the  huddle  of  cattle  from  which  it  had 
been  cut  out.  The  men  were  riders  of  such 
skill  that  shaking  them  in  their  seats  was 
impossible,  no  matter  how  quickly  the  horse 
turned  or  how  violent  the  shocks  were;  nor 
was  a  single  horse  hurt  in  the  rough  play.  It 
was  a  wild  scene,  and  an  exhibition  of  prowess 
well  worth  witnessing. 

Other  exhibitions  of  horsemanship  followed, 
including  the  old  feat  of  riding  a  bull.  The 
bull,  a  vicious  one,  was  left  alone  in  the  ring, 
and  his  temper  soon  showed  signs  of  extreme 
shortness  as  he  pawed  the  dirt,  tossing  it  above 
his  shoulders.  Watching  the  chance  when  the 
bull's  attention  was  fixed  elsewhere,  a  man  ran 
in  and  got  to  the  little  fence  before  the  bull 
could  charge  him.  Then,  while  the  bull  was 
still  angrily  endeavoring  to  get  at  the  man,  the 
corral  gate  opposite  was  thrown  open  and  six 
or  eight  horsemen  entered,  riding  with  quiet 
unconcern.  The  bull  was  obviously  not  in  the 
least  afraid  of  the  footman,  whereas  he  had  a 
certain  feeling  of  respect  for  the  horsemen. 
Two  of  the  latter  approached  him.  One  got 
his  rope  over  the  bull's  horns,  and  the  other 
then  dexterously  roped  the  hind  legs.  The 
footman  rushed  in  and  seized  the  tail,  and  the 


A   CHILEAN  RONDEO 

bull  was  speedily  on  his  side.  Then  a  lean, 
slab-sided,  rather  frowzy-looking  man,  out 
wardly  differing  in  no  essential  respect  from  the 
professional  bronco-buster  of  the  Southwest, 
slipped  from  the  spectators'  seats  into  the  ring. 
A  saddle  was  girthed  tight  on  the  bull,  and  a 
rope  ring  placed  round  his  broad  chest  so  as 
to  give  the  rider  something  by  which  to  hang. 
The  lassos  upon  him  were  cast  loose,  and  he 
rose,  snorting  with  rage  and  terror.  If  he  had 
thrown  the  man,  the  horsemen  would  have 
had  to  work  with  instantaneous  swiftness  to 
save  his  life.  But  all  the  bull's  furious  buck 
ing  and  jumping  could  not  unseat  the  rider. 
The  horsemen  began  to  tease  the  animal,  flap 
ping  red  blankets  in  his  face,  and  luring  him  to 
charges  which  they  easily  evaded.  Finally  they 
threw  him  again,  took  off  his  saddle  and  turned 
him  loose,  and  at  the  same  time  some  steers 
were  driven  into  the  corral  to  serve  as  company 
for  him.  A  couple  of  the  horsemen  took  him 
out  of  the  bunch  and  raced  him  round  the 
corral,  turning  him  when  they  wished  by  press 
ing  him  against  the  pole  corral  lining,  thus 
repeating  the  game  that  had  already  been 
played  with  so  many  of  the  steers.  In  his  case 
it  was,  of  course,  more  dangerous.  But  they 
showed  complete  mastery,  and  the  horses  had 


126     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  PIOLIDAYS 

not  the  slightest  fear,  nailing  him  flat  against 
the  wall  with  their  chests,  and  spinning  him 
round  when  they  struck  him  on  occasions  when 
he  was  trying  to  make  up  his  mind  to  resist. 

Meanwhile  the  bull- rider  passed  his  hat  among 
the  spectators,  who  tossed  silver  pieces  into  it  — 
thus  marking  the  fundamental  difference  be 
tween  the  life  we  were  witnessing  and  our  own 
Western  ranch  life.  In  Chile,  with  its  aristo 
cratic  social  structure,  there  is  a  wide  gulf  be 
tween  the  gentry  and  the  ranch-hands ;  whereas 
in  the  democratic  life  of  our  own  cow  country 
the  ranch-owner  has,  more  often  than  not,  at 
one  time  been  himself  a  ranch-hand. 

After  the  sports  in  the  corral  were  finished  eight 
or  ten  of  the  huasos  appeared  on  big  horses  at  the 
bar  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  took  part  in 
a  sport  which  was  entirely  new  to  me.  Two 
champions  would  appear  side  by  side  or  half- 
facing  each  other,  at  the  bar.  Each  would  turn 
his  horse's  head  until  it  hung  over  the  bar  as  they 
half -fronted  each  other,  on  the  same  side  of  the 
bar.  The  object  was  for  each  man  to  try  to 
push  his  opponent  away  from  the  bar  and 
then  shove  past  him,  usually  carrying  his  op 
ponent  with  him.  Sometimes  it  was  a  contest 
of  man  against  man.  Sometimes  each  would 
have  two  or  three  backers.  No  one  could  touch 


A  CHILEAN  RONDEO  127 

any  other  man's  horse,  and  each  drove  his 
animal  right  against  his  opponent.  The  two 
men  fronting  each  other  at  the  bar  kept  their 
horses  head-on  against  the  bar;  the  others 
strove  each  to  get  his  horse's  head  between  the 
body  of  one  of  his  opponents  and  the  head  of 
that  opponent's  horse.  They  then  remained 
in  a  knot  for  some  minutes,  the  riders  cheering 
the  horses  with  their  strange,  wild,  Indian-like 
cries,  while  the  horses  pushed  and  strained. 
Usually  there  was  almost  no  progress  on  either 
side  at  first.  It  would  look  as  though  not  an 
inch  was  gained.  Gradually,  however,  the 
horses  on  one  side  or  the  other  got  an  inch  or 
two  or  three  inches  advantage  of  position  by 
straining  and  shoving.  Suddenly  the  right 
vantage-point  was  attained.  There  was  an 
outburst  of  furious  shouting  from  the  riders. 
The  horses  of  one  side  with  straining  quar 
ters  thrust  their  way  through  the  press,  whirl 
ing  round  or  half  upsetting  their  opponents, 
and  rushed  down  alongside  the  bar.  Why  the 
men's  legs  were  not  broken  I  could  not  say. 
On  this  occasion  all  the  men  were  good-natured. 
But  it  was  a  rough  sport,  and  I  could  well 
credit  the  statement  that,  if  there  were  bad 
blood  to  gratify,  the  chances  were  excellent  for 
a  fight. 


128     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

After  the  sports  we  motored  down  to  a  great 
pasture  on  one  side  of  a  lake,  beyond  which 
rose  lofty  mountains.  Then  we  returned  to 
the  ranch-house  itself  —  a  huge,  white,  single- 
storied  house  with  a  great  courtyard  in  the 
middle  and  wings  extending  toward  the  stable, 
the  saddle-rooms,  and  the  like.  It  was  a  house 
of  charm  and  distinction;  the  low  building - 
or  rather  group  of  buildings,  with  galleries  and 
colonnades  connecting  them  —  being  in  the  old 
native  style,  an  outgrowth  of  the  life  and  the 
land.  After  a  siesta  our  hosts  led  us  out  across 
a  wide  garden  brilliant  and  fragrant  with 
flowers,  to  the  deep,  cool  shade  of  a  row  of 
lofty  trees,  where  stood  a  long  table  spread  with 
white  linen  and  laden  with  silver  and  glass; 
and  here,  we  were  served  with  a  delicious  and 
elaborate  breakfast  —  the  Chilean  breakfast, 
that  of  Latin  Europe,  for  in  most  ways  the  life 
of  South  America  is  a  development  of  that  of 
Latin  Europe,  and  much  more  closely  kin  to 
it  than  it  is  to  the  life  of  the  English-speaking 
peoples  north  of  the  Rio  Grande. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  back  to  the  rail 
road.  At  one  point  of  our  drive  we  were  joined 
by  a  rider  who  had  taken  part  in  the  morning's 
sports.  He  galloped  at  full  speed  beside  the 
rushing  motor-car,  waving  his  hat  to  us  and 


A  CHILEAN  RONDEO  129 

shouting  good-by.  He  was  a  tall,  powerfully 
built,  middle-aged  man,  with  fine,  clean-cut 
features;  his  brightly  colored  mantle  streamed 
in  the  wind,  and  he  sat  in  the  saddle  with  utter 
ease  while  his  horse  tore  over  the  ground  along 
side  us.  He  was  a  noble  figure,  and  his  fare 
well  to  us  was  our  last  glimpse  of  the  wild,  old- 
time  huaso  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ACROSS   THE   ANDES   AND   NORTHERN 
PATAGONIA 

A  the  great  chain  of  the  Andes  stretches 
southward  its  altitude  grows  less,  and 
the  mountain  wall  is  here  and  there 
broken  by  passes.  When  the  time  came  for 
me  to  leave  Chile  I  determined  to  cross  the 
Andes  by  the  easiest  and  most  accessible  and 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  these  comparatively 
low  passes.  At  the  other  end  of  the  pass,  on 
the  Argentine  or  Patagonian  side,  we  were  to 
be  met  by  motor-cars,  sent  thither  by  my  con 
siderate  hosts,  the  governmental  authorities  of 
Argentina. 

From  Santiago  we  went  south  by  rail  to 
Puerto  Varas.  The  railway  passed  through  the 
wide,  rolling  agricultural  country  of  central 
Chile,  a  country  of  farms  and  prosperous  towns. 
As  we  went  southward  we  found  ourselves  in  a 
land  which  was  new  in  the  sense  that  our  own 
West  is  new.  Middle  and  southern  Chile  were 
in  the  hands  of  the  Indians  but  a  short  while 
since.  We  were  met  by  fine-looking  represen- 

130 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  131 

tatives  of  these  Araucanian  Indians,  all  of  them 
now  peaceable  farmers  and  stock-growers,  at 
a  town  of  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  people 
where  there  was  not  a  single  white  man  to  be 
found  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Our  party 
included,  among  others,  Major  Shipton,  U.  S.  A., 
the  military  aide  to  our  legation  at  Buenos 
Ayres,  my  son  Kermit,  and  several  kind  Chilean 
friends. 

We  reached  our  destination,  Puerto  Varas, 
early  in  the  morning.  It  stands  on  the  shore 
of  a  lovely  lake.  There  has  been  a  consider 
able  German  settlement  in  middle  and  southern 
Chile,  and,  as  everywhere,  the  Germans  have 
made  capital  colonists.  At  Puerto  Varas  there 
are  two  villages,  mainly  of  Germans,  one  Prot 
estant  and  the  other  Catholic.  We  were 
made  welcome  and  given  breakfast  in  an  inn 
which,  with  its  signs  and  pictures,  might  have 
come  from  the  Fatherland.  Among  the  guests 
at  the  breakfast,  in  addition  to  the  native 
Chilean  Intendente,  were  three  or  four  normal- 
school  teachers,  all  of  them  Germans  —  and  evi 
dently  uncommonly  good  teachers,  too.  There 
were  school-children,  there  were  citizens  of 
every  kind.  Many  of  the  Germans  born  abroad 
could  speak  nothing  but  German.  The  chil 
dren,  however,  spoke  Spanish,  and  in  some  cases 


132     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

nothing  but  Spanish.  Here,  as  so  often  in  the 
addresses  made  to  me,  special  stress  was  laid 
upon  the  fact  that  my  country  represented  the 
cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  of  the  abso 
lute  equality  of  treatment  of  all  men  without 
regard  to  creed,  and  of  social  and  industrial 
justice;  in  short,  the  cause  of  orderly  liberty 
in  body,  soul,  and  mind,  in  things  intellectual 
and  spiritual  no  less  than  in  things  industrial 
and  political;  the  liberty  that  guarantees  to 
each  free,  bold  spirit  the  right  to  search  for 
truth  without  any  check  from  political  or  ec 
clesiastical  tyranny,  and  that  also  guarantees 
to  the  weak  their  bodily  rights  as  against  any 
man  who  would  exploit  or  oppress  them. 

We  left  Puerto  Varas  by  steamer  on  the  lake 
to  begin  our  four  days'  trip  across  the  Andes 
and  through  northern  Patagonia,  which  was  to 
end  when  we  struck  the  Argentine  Railway  at 
Neuquen.  This  break  in  the  Andes  makes  an 
easy  road,  for  the  pass  at  its  summit  is  but 
three  thousand  feet  high.  The  route  followed 
leads  between  high  mountains  and  across  lake 
after  lake,  and  the  scenery  is  as  beautiful  as 
any  in  the  world. 

The  first  lake  was  surrounded  by  a  rugged, 
forest-clad  mountain  wilderness,  broken  here 
and  there  by  settlers'  clearings.  Wonderful 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  133 

mountains  rose  near  by;  one  was  a  snow-clad 
volcano  with  a  broken  cone  which  not  many 
years  ago  was  in  violent  eruption.  Another, 
even  more  beautiful,  was  a  lofty  peak  of  vir 
ginal  snow.  At  the  farther  end  of  the  lake 
we  lunched  at  a  clean  little  hotel.  Then  we 
took  horses  and  rode  for  a  dozen  miles  to  an 
other  lake,  called  Esmeralda  or  Los  Santos. 
Surely  there  can  be  no  more  beautiful  lake  any 
where  than  this!  All  around  it  are  high  moun 
tains,  many  of  them  volcanoes.  One  of  these 
mountains  to  the  north,  Punti  Agudo,  rises  in 
sheer  cliffs  to  its  soaring  summit,  so  steep  that 
snow  will  hardly  lie  on  its  sides.  Another  to 
the  southwest,  called  Tronador,  the  Thunderer, 
is  capped  with  vast  fields  of  perpetual  snow, 
from  which  the  glaciers  creep  down  to  the 
valleys.  It  gains  its  name  of  thunderer  from 
the  tremendous  roaring  of  the  shattered  ice 
masses  when  they  fall.  Out  of  a  huge  cave 
in  one  of  its  glaciers  a  river  rushes,  full  grown 
at  birth.  At  the  eastern  end  of  this  lake  stands 
a  thoroughly  comfortable  hotel,  which  we 
reached  at  sunset.  Behind  us  in  the  evening 
lights,  against  the  sunset,  under  the  still  air, 
the  lake  was  very  beautiful.  The  peaks  were 
golden  in  the  dying  sunlight,  and  over  them 
hung  the  crescent  moon. 


134     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

Next  morning,  before  sunrise,  we  were  riding 
eastward  through  the  valley.  For  two  or  three 
miles  the  ride  suggested  that  through  the 
Yosemite,  because  of  the  abruptness  with  which 
the  high  mountain  walls  rose  on  either  hand, 
while  the  valley  was  flat,  with  glades  and  woods 
alternating  on  its  surface.  Then  we  got  into 
thick  forest.  The  trees  were  for  the  most  part 
giant  beeches,  but  with  some  conifers,  includ 
ing  a  rather  small  species  of  sequoia.  Here  and 
there,  in  the  glades  and  open  spaces,  there  were 
masses  of  many-hued  wild  flowers;  conspicuous 
among  them  were  the  fuchsias. 

A  dozen  miles  on  we  stopped  at  another  little 
inn.  Here  we  said  good-by  to  the  kind  Chilean 
friends  who  had  accompanied  us  thus  far, 
and  were  greeted  by  no  less  kind  Argentine 
friends,  including  Colonel  Reybaud  of  the  Ar 
gentine  army,  and  Doctor  Moreno,  the  noted 
Argentine  scientist,  explorer,  and  educator. 
Then  we  climbed  through  a  wooded  pass  be 
tween  two  mountains.  Its  summit,  near  which 
lies  the  boundary-line  between  Chile  and  Argen 
tina,  is  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  three 
thousand  feet  high;  and  this  is  the  extreme 
height  over  which  at  this  point  it  is  necessary 
to  go  in  traversing  what  is  elsewhere  the  mighty 
mountain  wall  of  the  Andes.  Here  we  met  a 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  135 

tame  guanaco  (a  kind  of  llama)  in  the  road; 
it  strolled  up  to  us,  smelled  the  noses  of  the 
horses,  which  were  rather  afraid  of  it,  and  then 
walked  on  by  us.  From  the  summit  of  the 
pass  the  ground  fell  rapidly  to  a  wonderfully 
beautiful  little  lake  of  lovely  green  water.  This 
little  gem  is  hemmed  in  by  sheer-sided  moun 
tains,  densely  timbered  save  where  the  cliffs 
rise  too  boldly  for  even  the  hardiest  trees  to 
take  root.  As  with  all  these  lakes,  there  are 
many  beautiful  waterfalls.  The  rapid  moun 
tain  brooks  fling  themselves  over  precipices 
which  are  sometimes  so  high  that  the  water 
reaches  the  foot  in  sheets  of  wavering  mist. 
Everywhere  in  the  background  rise  the  snow 
peaks. 

We  crossed  this  little  lake  in  a  steam-launch, 
and  on  the  other  side  found  the  quaintest 
wooden  railway,  with  a  couple  of  rough  hand 
cars,  each  dragged  by  an  ox.  In  going  down 
hill  the  ox  is  put  behind  the  car,  which  he  holds 
back  with  a  rope  tied  to  his  horns.  We  piled 
our  baggage  on  one  car,  three  or  four  members 
of  the  party  got  on  the  other,  and  the  rest  of 
us  walked  for  the  two  miles  or  so  before  we 
reached  the  last  lake  we  were  to  traverse  — - 
Nahuel  Huapi.  Here  there  happened  one  of 
those  incidents  which  show  how  the  world  is 


136     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

shrinking.  Three  travellers,  evidently  English 
men,  were  at  the  landing.  One  of  them  came 
up  to  me  and  introduced  himself,  saying:  "You 
won't  remember  me;  w^hen  I  last  saw  you,  you 
were  romping  with  little  Prince  Sigurd,  in 
Buckingham  Palace  at  the  time  of  the  King's 
funeral;  I  was  in  attendance  on  (naming  an 
august  lady);  my  name  is  Herschel,  Lord  Her- 
schel."  I  recalled  the  incident  at  once.  On 
returning  from  my  African  trip  I  had  passed 
through  western  Europe,  and  had  been  most 
courteously  received.  In  one  palace  the  son 
and  heir  —  whom  I  have  called  Sigurd,  which 
was  not  his  name  —  was  a  dear  little  fellow,  very 
manly  and  also  very  friendly;  and  he  reminded 
me  so  of  my  own  children  when  they  were  small 
that  I  was  unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of 
romping  with  him,  just  as  I  had  romped  with 
them.  A  month  later,  when  as  special  ambas 
sador  I  was  attending  King  Edward's  funeral, 
I  called  at  Buckingham  Palace  to  pay  my  re 
spects,  and  was  taken  in  to  see  the  august  lady 
above  alluded  to.  The  visit  lasted  nearly  an 
hour,  and  toward  the  end  I  heard  little  squeaks 
and  sounds  in  the  hall  outside,  for  which  I 
could  not  account.  Finally  I  was  dismissed,  and, 
on  opening  the  door,  there  was  little  Sigurd, 
with  his  nurse,  waiting  for  me.  He  had  heard 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  137 

that  I  was  in  the  palace,  and  had  refused  to  go 
down  to  dinner  until  he  had  had  a  play  with 
me;  and  he  was  patiently  and  expectantly 
waiting  outside  the  door  for  me  to  appear.  I 
seized  him,  tossed  him  up,  while  he  shouted 
gleefully,  caught  him,  and  rolled  him  on  the 
floor,  quite  forgetting  that  any  one  was  look 
ing  on;  and  then,  in  the  midst  of  the  romp, 
happening  to  look  up,  I  saw  the  lady  on  whom 
I  had  been  calling,  watching  the  play  with 
much  interest,  with  her  equally  interested  two 
brothers,  both  of  them  sovereigns,  and  her 
lords-in-waiting;  she  had  come  out  to  see  what 
the  little  boy's  laughter  meant.  I  straightened 
up,  whereupon  the  little  boy's  face  fell,  and  he 
anxiously  inquired:  "But  you're  not  going  to 
stop  the  play,  are  you?"  Of  all  this  my  new 
found  friend  reminded  me.  If  was  a  far  cry 
in  space  and  in  surroundings,  from  where  he 
and  I  had  first  met  to  the  Andes  that  border 
Patagonia.  He  was  a  man  of  knowledge  and 
experience,  and  the  half-hour  I  spent  with  him 
was  most  pleasant. 

At  Nahuel  Huapi  we  were  met  by  a  little 
lake  steamer,  on  which  we  spent  the  next  four 
hours.  The  lake  js  of  bold  and  irregular  out 
line,  with  many  deep  bays,  and  with  mountain 
walls  standing  as  promontories  between  the 


138     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

bays.  For  a  couple  of  hours  the  scenery  was 
as  beautiful  as  it  had  been  during  any  part  of 
the  two  days,  especially  when  we  looked  back 
at  the  mass  of  snow-shrouded  peaks.  Then  the 
lake  opened,  the  shores  became  clear  of  woods, 
the  mountains  lower,  and  near  the  eastern  end, 
where  there  were  only  low  rolling  hills,  we  came 
to  the  little  village  of  Bariloche. 

Bariloche  is  a  real  frontier  village.  Forty  years 
previously  Doctor  Moreno  had  been  captured 
by  Indians  at  this  very  spot,  had  escaped  from 
them,  and  after  days  of  extraordinary  hardship 
had  reached  safety.  He  showed  us  a  strange, 
giant  pine-tree,  of  a  kind  different  from  any  of 
our  northern  cone-bearers,  near  which  the  In 
dians  had  camped  while  he  was  prisoner  with 
them.  He  had  persuaded  the  settlers  to  have 
this  tree  preserved,  and  it  is  still  protected, 
though  slowly  dying  of  old  age.  The  town  is 
nearly  four  hundred  miles  from  a  railway,  and 
the  people  are  of  the  vigorous,  enterprising 
frontier  type.  It  was  like  one  of  our  frontier 
towns  in  the  old-time  West  as  regards  the  diver 
sity  in  ethnic  type  and  nationality  among  the 
citizens.  The  little  houses  stood  well  away 
from  one  another  on  the  broad,  rough,  faintly 
marked  streets.  In  one  we  might  see  a  Span 
ish  family,  in  another  blond  Germans  or  Swiss, 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  139 

in  yet  another  a  family  of  gaucho  stock  looking 
more  Indian  than  white.  All  worked  and  lived 
on  a  footing  of  equality,  and  all  showed  the 
effect  of  the  wide-spread  educational  effort  of 
the  Argentine  Government;  an  effort  as  marked 
as  in  our  own  country,  although  in  the  Argen 
tine  it  is  made  by  the  nation  instead  of  by  the 
several  states.  We  visited  the  little  public 
school.  The  two  women  teachers  were,  one  of 
Argentine  descent,  the  other  the  daughter  of 
an  English  father  and  an  Argentine  mother  - 
the  girl  herself  spoke  English  only  with  diffi 
culty.  They  told  us  that  the  Germans  had  a 
school  of  their  own,  but  that  the  Swiss  and  the 
other  immigrants  sent  their  children  to  the  gov 
ernment  school  with  the  children  of  the  native 
Argentines.  Afterward  I  visited  the  German 
school,  where  I  was  welcomed  by  a  dozen  of 
the  German  immigrants  —  men  of  the  same 
stamp  as  those  whom  I  had  so  often  seen,  and 
whom  I  so  much  admired  and  liked,  in  our  own 
Western  country.  I  was  rather  amused  to  see 
in  this  school,  together  with  a  picture  of  the 
Kaiser,  a  very  large  picture  of  Martin  Luther, 
although  about  a  third  of  the  Germans  were 
Catholics;  their  feelings  as  Germans  seemed 
in  this  instance  to  have  overcome  any  religious 
differences,  and  Martin  Luther  was  simply  ac- 


140     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

cepted  as  one  of  the  great  Germans  whose 
memory  they  wished  to  impress  on  the  minds 
of  their  children.  In  this  school  there  was  a 
good  little  library,  all  the  books  being,  of  course, 
German;  it  was  the  only  library  in  the  town. 

That  night  we  had  a  very  pleasant  dinner. 
Our  host  was  a  German.  Of  the  two  ladies 
who  did  the  honors  of  the  table,  one  was  a  Bel 
gian,  the  wife  of  the  only  doctor  in  Bariloche, 
and  the  other  a  Russian.  In  our  own  party, 
aside  from  the  four  of  us  from  the  United  States, 
there  were  Colonel  Reybaud,  of  the  Argentine 
army,  my  aide,  and  a  first-class  soldier;  Doctor 
Moreno,  who  was  as  devoted  a  friend  as  if  he 
had  been  my  aide;  and  three  other  Argentine 
gentlemen -- the  head  of  the  Interior  Depart 
ment,  the  governor  of  Neuquen,  and  the  head 
of  the  Indian  Service.  Among  the  other  guests 
was  a  man  originally  from  County  Meath,  and 
a  tall,  blond,  red-bearded  Venetian,  a  carpenter 
by  trade.  After  a  while  we  got  talking  of  books, 
and  it  wras  fairly  startling  to  see  the  way  that 
polyglot  assemblage  brightened  when  the  sub 
ject  was  introduced,  and  the  extraordinary  vari 
ety  of  its  taste  in  good  literature.  The  men 
began  eagerly  to  speak  about  and  quote  from 
their  favorite  authors  —  Cervantes,  Lope  de 
Vega,  Camoens,  Moliere,  Shakespeare,  Virgil, 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  141 

and  the  Greek  dramatists.  Our  host  quoted 
from  the  "  Nibelungenlied "  and  from  Homer, 
and  at  least  two-thirds  of  the  men  at  the  table 
seemed  to  have  dozens  of  authors  at  their 
tongues'  ends.  But  it  was  the  Italian  carpenter 
who  capped  the  climax,  for  when  we  touched  on 
Dante  he  became  almost  inspired  and  repeated 
passage  after  passage,  the  majesty  and  sono 
rous  cadence  of  the  lines  thrilling  him  so  that  his 
listeners  were  almost  as  much  moved  as  he  was. 
We  sat  thus  for  an  hour  —  an  unexpected  type 
of  Kajfee  Klatsch  for  such  an  outpost  of  civili 
zation. 

Next  morning  at  five  we  were  off  for  our  four- 
hundred-mile  drive  across  the  Patagonian  wastes 
to  the  railway  at  Neuquen.  We  had  been 
through  a  stretch  of  scenery  as  lovely  as  can 
be  found  anywhere  in  the  world  —  a  stretch 
that  in  parts  suggested  the  Swiss  lakes  and 
mountains,  and  in  other  parts  Yellowstone 
Park  or  the  Yosemite  or  the  mountains  near 
Puget  Sound.  In  a  couple  of  years  the  Argen 
tines  will  have  pushed  their  railway  system  to 
Bariloche,  and  then  all  tourists  who  come  to 
South  America  should  make  a  point  of  visiting 
this  wonderfully  beautiful  region.  Doubtless 
in  the  end  it  will  be  developed  for .  travellers 
much  as  other  regions  of  great  scenic  attraction 


142     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

are  developed.  Thanks  to  Doctor  Moreno,  the 
Argentine  end  of  it  is  already  a  national  park; 
I  trust  the  Chilean  end  soon  will  be. 

We  left  Bariloche  in  three  motor-cars,  know 
ing  that  we  had  a  couple  of  hard  days  ahead  of 
us.  After  skirting  the  lake  for  a  mile  or  two 
we  struck  inland  over  flats  and  through  valleys. 
We  had  to  cross  a  rapid  river  at  a  riffle  where 
the  motor-cars  were  just  able  to  make  it.  The 
road  consisted  only  of  the  ruts  made  by  the 
passage  of  the  great  bullock  carts,  and  often  we 
had  to  go  alongside  it,  or  leave  it  entirely  where 
at  some  crossing  of  a  small  stream  the  ground 
looked  too  boggy  for  us  to  venture  in  with  the 
motor-cars.  Three  times  in  making  such  a 
crossing  one  of  the  cars  bogged  down,  and  we 
had  hard  work  in  getting  out.  In  one  case  it 
caused  us  two  hours'  labor  in  building  a  stone 
causeway  under  and  in  front  of  the  wheels  - 
repeating  what  I  had  helped  do  not  many 
months  before  in  Arizona,  when  we  struck  a 
place  where  a  cloudburst  had  taken  away  the 
bridge  across  a  stream  and  a  good  part  of  the 
road  that  led  up  to  it  on  either  side. 

In  another  place  the  leading  car  got  into 
heavy  sand  and  was  unable  to  move.  A  party 
of  gauchos  came  loping  up,  and  two  of  them 
tied  their  ropes  to  the  car  and  pulled  it  back- 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  143 

ward  onto  firm  ground.  These  gauchos  were 
a  most  picturesque  set.  They  were  riding 
good  horses,  strong  and  hardy  and  wild,  and 
the  men  were  consummate  horsemen,  utterly 
indifferent  to  the  sudden  leaps  and  twists  of 
the  nervous  beasts  they  rode.  Each  wore  a 
broad,  silver-studded  belt,  with  a  long  knife 
thrust  into  it.  Some  had  their  trousers  in 
boots,  others  wore  baggy  breeches  gathered  in 
at  the  ankle.  The  saddles,  unlike  our  cow 
saddles,  had  no  horns,  and  the  rope  when  in 
use  was  attached  to  the  girth  ring.  The  stir 
rups  were  the  queerest  of  all.  Often  they  were 
heavy  flat  disks,  the  terminal  part  of  the  stirrup- 
leather  being  represented  by  a  narrow  metal,  or 
stiff  leather,  bar  a  foot  in  length.  A  slit  was 
cut  in  the  heavy  flat  disk  big  enough  to  admit 
the  toe  of  the  foot,  and  with  this  type  of  stir 
rup,  which  to  me  would  have  been  almost  as 
unsatisfactory  as  no  stirrup  at  all,  they  sat 
their  bucking  or  jumping  horses  with  complete 
indifference. 

It  was  gaucho  land  through  which  we  were 
travelling.  Every  man  in  it  was  born  to  the 
saddle.  We  saw  tiny  boys  not  only  riding  but 
performing  all  the  duties  of  full-grown  men  in 
guiding  loose  herds  or  pack-animals.  No  less 
characteristic  than  these  daredevil  horsemen 


144     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

were  the  lines  of  great  two-wheeled  carts,  each 
dragged  by  five  mules,  three  in  the  lead,  with 
two  wheelers,  or  else  perhaps  drawn  by  four 
or  six  oxen.  For  the  most  part  these  carts 
were  carrying  wool  or  hides.  Occasionally  we 
came  on  great  pastures  surrounded  by  wire 
fences.  Elsewhere  the  stony,  desolate  land  lay 
as  it  had  lain  from  time  immemorial.  We  saw 
many  flocks  of  sheep,  and  many  herds  of  horses, 
among  which  piebald  horses  were  unusually 
plentiful.  There  were  a  good  many  cattle,  too, 
and  on  two  or  three  occasions  we  saw  flocks  of 
goats.  It  was  a  wild,  rough  country,  and  in 
such  a  country  life  is  hard  for  both  man  and 
beast.  Everywhere  along  the  trail  were  the 
skeletons  and  dried  carcasses  of  cattle,  and  oc 
casionally  horses.  Yet  there  were  almost  no 
carrion  birds,  no  ravens  or  crows,  no  small 
vultures,  although  once  very  high  up  in  the  air 
we  saw  a  great  condor.  Indeed,  wild  life  was 
not  plentiful,  although  we  saw  ostriches  —  the 
South  American  rhea  —  and  there  was  an  oc 
casional  guanaco,  or  wild  llama.  Foxes  were 
certainly  abundant,  because  at  the  squalid 
little  country  stores  there  were  hundreds  of 
their  skins  and  also  many  skunk  skins. 

Now     and    then    we    passed     ranch-houses. 
There  might  be  two  or  three  fairly  close  to- 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  145 

gether,  then  again  we  might  travel  for  twenty 
miles  without  a  sign  of  a  habitation  or  a  human 
being.  In  one  place  there  was  a  cluster  of  build 
ings  and  a  little  schoolhouse.  We  stopped  to 
shake  hands  with  the  teacher.  Some  of  the 
ranch-houses  were  cleanly  built  and  neatly  kept, 
shade-trees  being  planted  round  about  -  -  the 
only  trees  we  saw  during  the  entire  motor 
journey.  Other  houses  were  slovenly  huts  of 
mud  and  thatch,  with  a  brush  corral  near  by. 
Around  the  houses  of  this  type  the  bare  dirt 
surface  was  filthy  and  unkempt,  and  covered 
with  a  litter  of  the  skulls  and  bones  of  sheep 
and  oxen,  fragments  of  skin  and  hide,  and  odds 
and  ends  of  all  kinds,  foul  to  every  sense. 

Every  now  and  then  along  the  road  we  came 
to  a  solitary  little  store.  If  it  was  very  poor 
and  squalid,  it  was  called  a  pulperia;  if  it  was 
large,  it  was  called  an  almacen.  Inside  there 
was  a  rough  floor  of  dirt  or  boards,  and  a 
counter  ran  round  it.  At  one  end  of  the  counter 
was  the  bar,  at  which  drinks  were  sold.  Over 
the  rest  of  the  counter  the  business  of  the 
store  proper  was  done.  Hats,  blankets,  horse- 
gear,  rude  articles  of  clothing,  and  the  like  were 
on  the  shelves  or  hung  from  rings  in  the  ceiling. 
Sometimes  we  saw  gauchos  drinking  at  these 
bars  —  rough,  wild-looking  men,  some  of  them 


146     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

more  than  three  parts  Indian,  others  blond, 
hairy  creatures  with  the  northern  blood  showing 
obviously.  Although  they  are  dangerous  men 
when  angered,  they  are  generally  polite,  and 
we,  of  course,  had  no  trouble  with  them.  Hides, 
fox  skins,  and  the  like  are  brought  by  them  for 
sale  or  for  barter. 

Order  is  kept  by  the  mounted  territorial  police, 
an  excellent  body,  much  like  the  Canadian 
mounted  police  and  the  Pennsylvania  constabu 
lary.  These  men  are  alert  and  soldierly,  with 
fine  horses,  well-kept  arms,  and  smart  uniforms. 
Many  of  them  were  obviously  mainly,  and  most 
of  them  were  partly,  of  Indian  blood.  I  think 
that  Indian  blood  is  on  the  whole  a  distinct 
addition  to  the  race  stock  when  the  ancestral 
Indian  tribe  is  of  the  right  kind.  The  acting 
president  of  the  Argentine  during  my  visit,  the 
vice-president,  a  very  able  and  forceful  man, 
wealthy,  well  educated,  a  thorough  statesman 
and  man  of  the  world,  and  a  delightful  com 
panion,  had  a  strong  strain  of  Indian  blood  in 
him. 

The  ordinary  people  we  met  used  "Indian" 
and  "Christian"  as  opposite  terms,  having  cul 
tural  rather  than  theological  or  racial  signifi 
cance,  this  being  customary  in  the  border  regions 
of  temperate  South  America.  In  one  place 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  147 

where  we  stopped  four  Indians  came  in  to  see 
us.  The  chief  or  head  man  looked  like  a  thor 
ough  Indian.  He  might  have  been  a  Sioux  or 
a  Cornanche.  One  of  his  companions  was  ap 
parently  a  half-breed,  showing  strong  Indian 
features,  however.  A  third  had  a  full  beard, 
and,  though  he  certainly  did  not  look  quite  like 
a  white  man,  no  less  certainly  he  did  not  look 
like  an  Indian.  The  fourth  was  considerably 
more  white  than  Indian.  He  had  a  long  beard, 
being  dressed,  as  were  the  others,  in  shabby 
white  man's  garb.  He  looked  much  more  like 
one  of  the  poorer  class  of  Boers  than  like  any 
Indian  I  have  ever  seen.  I  noticed  this  man 
talking  to  two  of  the  mounted  police.  They 
were  smart,  well-set-up  men,  thoroughly  iden 
tified  with  the  rest  of  the  population,  and  re 
garding  themselves  and  being  regarded  by 
others  as  on  the  same  level  with  their  fellow 
citizens.  Yet  they  were  obviously  far  more 
Indian  in  blood  than  was  the  unkempt,  bearded 
white  man  to  whom  they  were  talking,  and 
whom  they  and  their  fellows  spoke  of  as  an 
Indian,  while  they  spoke  of  themselves,  and 
were  spoken  of  by  others,  as  "Christians." 
"Indian"  was  the  term  reserved  for  the  Indians 
who  were  still  pagans  and  who  still  kept  up  a 
certain  tribal  relation.  Whenever  an  Indian 


148     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

adopted  Christianity  in  the  excessively  prim 
itive  form  known  to  the  gauchos,  came  out  to 
live  with  the  whites,  and  followed  the  ordinary 
occupations,  he  seemed  to  be  promptly  ac 
cepted  as  a  white  man,  no  different  from  any 
one  else.  The  Indians,  by  the  way,  now  have 
property,  and  are  well  treated.  Nevertheless, 
the  pure  stock  is  dying  out,  and  those  that  sur 
vive  are  being  absorbed  in  the  rest  of  the  popu 
lation. 

The  various  accidents  we  met  with  during 
the  forenoon  delayed  us,  and  we  did  not  take 
breakfast  —  or,  as  we  at  home  would  call  it, 
lunch  —  until  about  three  o'clock  in  the  after 
noon.  We  had  then  halted  at  a  big  group  of 
buildings  which  included  a  store  and  a  govern 
ment  telegraph  office.  The  store  was  a  long, 
whitewashed,  one-story  house,  the  bedrooms  in 
the  rear,  and  all  kinds  of  outbuildings  round 
about.  In  some  corrals  near  by  a  thousand 
sheep  were  being  sheared.  Breakfast  had  been 
long  deferred,  and  we  were  hungry.  But  it 
was  a  feast  when  it  did  come,  for  two  young 
sheep  or  big  lambs  were  roasted  whole  before  a 
fire  in  the  open,  and  were  then  set  before  us; 
the  open-air  cook  was  evidently  of  almost  pure 
Indian  blood. 

On  we  went  with  the  cars,  with  no  further 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  149 

accidents  and  no  trouble  except  once  in  cross 
ing  a  sand  belt.  The  landscape  was  parched 
and  barren.  Yet  its  look  of  almost  inconceiv 
able  desolation  was  not  entirely  warranted,  for 
in  the  flats  and  valleys  water  could  evidently 
be  obtained  a  few  feet  below  the  surface,  and 
where  it  was  pumped  up  anything  could  be 
grown  on  the  soil. 

But,  unless  thus  artificially  supplied,  water 
was  too  scarce  to  permit  any  luxuriance  of 
growth.  Here  and  there  were  stretches  of  fairly 
good  grass,  but  on  the  whole  the  country  was 
covered  with  dry  scrub  a  foot  or  two  high, 
rising  in  clumps  out  of  the  earth  or  gravel  or 
sand.  The  hills  were  stony  and  bare,  some 
times  with  flat,  sheer-sided  tops,  and  the  herds 
of  half-wild  horses  and  of  cattle  and  sheep,  and 
the  even  wilder  riders  we  met,  and  the  squalid 
little  ranch-houses,  all  combined  to  give  the 
landscape  a  peculiar  touch. 

As  evening  drew  on,  the  harsh,  raw  sun 
light  softened.  The  hills  assumed  a  myriad 
tints  as  the  sun  sank.  The  long  gloaming  fol 
lowed.  The  young  moon  hung  overhead,  well 
toward  the  west,  and  just  on  the  edge  of  the 
horizon  the  Southern  Cross  stood  upside  down. 
Then  clouds  gathered,  boding  a  storm.  The 
night  grew  black,  and  on  we  went  through  the 


150     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

darkness,  the  motormen  clutching  the  steering- 
wheels  and  peering  anxiously  forward  as  they 
strove  to  make  out  the  ruts  and  faint  road- 
marks  in  the  shifting  glare  of  the  headlights. 
The  play  of  the  lightning  and  the  rolling  of  the 
thunder  came  near  and  nearer.  We  were  evi 
dently  in  for  a  storm,  which  would  probably 
have  brought  us  to  a  complete  halt,  and  we 
looked  out  for  a  house  to  stop  at.  At  10.15 
we  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  long  white  building 
on  one  side  of  the  road.  It  was  one  of  the 
stores  of  which  I  have  spoken.  With  some 
effort  we  roused  the  people,  and  after  arrang 
ing  the  motor-cars  we  went  inside.  They  were 
good  people.  They  got  us  eggs  and  coffee,  and, 
as  we  had  a  cold  pig,  we  fared  well.  Then  we 
lay  down  on  the  floor  of  the  store  and  on  the 
counters  and  slept  for  four  hours. 

At  three  I  waked  the  sleepers  with  the  cry- 
that  in  bygone  days  on  the  Western  cattle 
plains  had  so  often  roused  me  from  the  heavy 
slumber  of  the  men  of  the  round-up.  It  was 
the  short  November  night  of  high  southern  lati 
tudes.  Dawn  came  early.  We  started  as  soon 
as  the  faint  gray  enabled  us  to  see  the  road. 
The  stars  paled  and  vanished.  The  sunrise 
was  glorious.  We  came  out  from  among  the 
hills  on  to  vast  barren  plains.  Hour  after  hour, 


ACROSS  THE  ANDES  151 

all  day  long,  we  drove  at  speed  over  them. 
The  sun  set  in  red  and  angry  splendor  amid 
gathering  clouds.  When  we  reached  the  Rio 
Negro  the  light  was  dying  from  the  sky,  and  a 
heavy  storm  was  rolling  toward  us.  The  guard 
ians  of  the  rope  ferry  feared  to  try  the  river, 
with  the  storm  rising  through  the  black  night; 
but  we  forced  them  to  put  off,  and  we  reached 
the  other  shore  just  before  the  wind  smote  us, 
and  the  rushing  rain  drove  in  our  faces. 


CHAPTER   VII 
WILD  HUNTING  COMPANIONS 

IN  the  days  when  I  lived  and  worked  on  a 
cattle-ranch,  on  the  Little  Missouri,  I  usu 
ally  hunted  alone;  and,  if  not,  my  com 
panion  was  one  of  the  cow-hands,  unless  I  was 
taking  out  a  guest  from  the  East.  On  some 
of  my  regular  hunting  trips  in  the  Rockies  I 
went  with  one  or  more  of  my  ranch-hands  — 
who  were  valued  friends  and  fellow  workers. 
On  others  of  these  trips  I  went  wTith  men  who 
were  either  temporarily,  like  John  Willis,  or  per 
manently,  like  Tazewell  Woody  and  John  Goff, 
professional  guides  and  hunters.  In  Africa  I 
sometimes  hunted  with  some  of  the  settlers,  and 
often  alone  or  with  my  son  Kermit;  but  even 
more  frequently  with  either  Cunningham  or 
Tarlton,  the  former  for  many  years  a  profes 
sional  elephant  hunter,  and  the  latter  by  choice 
and  preference  a  lion  hunter.  Both  of  them, 
I  think  I  may  say,  became  permanently  my 
friends  as  the  result  of  the  trip. 

Often,    however,    my    companions   were    not 
white  men,  but  either  half-breeds  and  people 

152 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     153 

of  mixed  blood  or  else  wild  natives  of  the  wild 
lands  over  which  the  great  game  roamed.  To 
some  of  these  men  I  became  really  attached. 
Not  a  few  of  them  showed  a  courage  and  loyalty 
and  devotion  to  duty  which  would  have  put  to 
shame  very  many  civilized  men.  Almost  all  of 
them  at  times  did  or  said  things  that  were  very 
interesting  because  of  the  glimpses  they  gave 
into  souls  that  really  belong  to  a  totally  different 
age  from  that  in  which  I  and  my  friends  of 
civilized  lands  are  living. 

December,  1913,  and  January,  1914,  I  spent 
in  the  remote  interior  of  Brazil,  on  and  near 
various  rivers  which  form  the  headwaters  of 
the  mighty  Paraguay.  It  is  still  a  frontier 
country;  the  province  is  known  as  the  Matto 
Grosso,  the  province  of  the  great  wooded  wil 
derness.  Yet  it  has  a  civilized  and  Christian 
history  which  runs  back  for  over  a  century.  It  ^ 
is  on  the  eve  of  striking  material  development, 
and,  nevertheless,  it  is  still  primitive  with  a 
primitiveness  half  that  of  a  belated  Europe, 
half  that  of  a  savagery  struggling  over  the 
border-line  into  an  exceedingly  simple  civiliza 
tion.  Out  of  these  diverse  and  conflicting  ele 
ments,  and  with  a  century  of  comparative  isola 
tion  behind  it,  the  land  has  produced  a  far  more 
distinctive  and  peculiar  life  than  our  own  frontier 


154     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

communities  ever  had  the  chance  to  develop. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  any  country  more 
charming  and  better-bred  men  than  some  of  the 
gentlemen,  the  great  ranchmen  and  the  political 
and  social  leaders  in  city  life,  whose  generous 
hospitality  made  me  their  debtor.  But  the 
ordinary  folk,  and  especially  the  Caboclos,  the 
peasantry,  although  with  many  sterling  quali 
ties,  were  of  a  type  wholly  different  from  any 
thing  to  be  found  either  in  Europe  or  in  tem 
perate  North  America. 

The  land  is  largely  composed  of  the  pantanals, 
the  flat,  wide-stretching  marshes  through  which 
the  Paraguay  and  its  affluents  wind.  Where  the 
land  is  low  it  is  covered  with  papyrus  and 
water-grass;  if  a  few  feet  higher,  with  open 
palm  forest.  It  offers  fine  pasturage  for  the 
herds  of  cattle.  In  addition  there  are  moun 
tains  and  belts  of  tropic  jungle  and  forest,  and 
to  the  north  rises  the  sandy  central  table-land 
of  Brazil.  There  are  no  railroads,  and  no  high 
roads  of  any  length  for  wheeled  vehicles.  The 
rivers  are  the  highways.  Native  boats,  with 
palm-thatch  houses  and  cooking-ovens  of  red 
earth  on  the  decks,  drift  down  them  and  are 
poled  or  towed  up  them.  A  few  light-draft 
steamers,  running  every  week  or  fortnight, 
connect  the  widely  scattered  little  cities.  They 


WILD  HUNTING   COMPANIONS     155 

are  quaint,  picturesque  little  cities,  without  a 
wheeled  vehicle  except  the  water-carts.  The 
one-story  houses  enclose  open  courtyards.  The 
walls  are  thick,  and  the  windows  and  doors 
very  high,  so  as  to  let  whatever  coolness  the 
night  air  carries  fan  the  sleepers  in  their  ham 
mocks.  In  the  bigger  houses  there  are  beds 
in  the  guest-chambers;  but  the  hammock  is 
really  the  bed;  and  in  the  inns  the  bedrooms 
have  rings  in  the  walls  from  which  the  traveller 
hangs  the  hammock  he  has  brought  with  him. 
After  nightfall  the  men  sit  at  little  tables  under 
the  trees  in  the  public  squares  or  outside  the 
taverns,  and  through  the  open  doors  and  win 
dows  of  the  houses,  in  the  mysterious  darkness, 
are  the  half-seen  figures  of  girls  and  women; 
and  stringed  instruments  tinkle  in  the  still 
tropic  night. 

When  Portugal  still  ruled  Brazil,  the  first 
of  these  cities  was  founded,  toward  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  At  that  time  it  could 
only  be  reached  by  a  long  voyage  of  peril  and 
hardship  up  the  Amazon  and  the  Madeira, 
and  then  by  mule  back.  No  place  in  the  world 
is  now  so  remote  from  civilization  as  this  little 
capital  of  the  "Great  Wilderness"  then  was; 
but  its  life  was  fervent  under  the  torrid  sky. 
Governors,  generals,  priests  were  there,  slave- 


156     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

owners  and  gold  seekers;  killers  of  men  and 
lovers  of  women.  There  was  a  palace  and  a 
cathedral  and  a  fort,  adorned  with  paintings 
and  carvings.  All  are  in  ruins  now;  the  rank 
vegetation  of  the  tropics,  beautiful  and  lethal, 
has  covered  them  and  twisted  them  asunder; 
for  the  strange  little  one-time  capital  city  is 
dead,  and  those  that  dwelt  therein  have  left 
it. 

The  next  comers  followed  a  route  that  led 
from  the  opposite  direction,  the  south.  These 
were  the  Paolistas.  At  Sao  Paulo,  almost  un 
der  the  Tropic  of  Cancer,  the  Portuguese  con 
querors  married  with  the  women  of  the  native 
Indians,  and  made,  first  slaves,  and  then  sol 
diers,  of  men  from  many  Indian  tribes.  They 
all  became  welded  together  into  one  people, 
speaking  Portuguese,  but  largely,  and  probably 
mainly,  Indian  by  blood;  and  being  of  various 
martial  stocks,  with  the  morals  of  the  viking 
age,  they  grew  into  a  community  of  freebooters 
whose  raiding  expeditions,  carried  on  with  the 
utmost  energy,  daring,  and  ruthlessness,  spread 
terror  far  and  wide.  Early  in  the  nineteenth 
century  these  hardy  horsemen  and  boatmen, 
searching  for  gold,  land,  and  slaves,  penetrated 
to  the  headwaters  of  the  Paraguay,  and  with 
their  advent  began  the  first  rude  change  from 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     157 

mere  savagery  to  that  which  held  within  it  the 
germ  of  civilization. 

Two  or  three  of  the  ranches  at  which  we 
stopped  were  provided  with  elaborate  and  even 
handsome  ranch-houses  and  other  buildings. 
One  of  them  was  owned  by  a  wealthy  and  cul 
tivated  native  proprietor.  It  was  fitted  with 
much  stately  luxury,  and  some  comfort.  Two 
others  were  owned  by  foreign  corporations. 
Among  the  higher  employees  were  men  from 
Europe  and  the  United  States,  and  also  "ori 
entals,"  as  the  men  of  Uruguay  are  always 
called -- Uruguay  being  the  "banda  oriental," 
or  eastern  shore,  of  the  Plate.  These  orientals 
were  as  pure  white  as  the  Europeans  and  North 
Americans,  and  were  of  a  high  grade.  The 
ordinary  cow-hands  on  these  two  ranches  were 
mostly  Paraguayans,  men  of  almost  pure  In 
dian  blood,  speaking  the  Guarani  tongue,  which 
is  the  real  home  language  of  the  peculiar  a 
interesting  little  republic  which  takes  its 
name  from  the  great  river.  These  particular 
ranches  were  on  the  borders  of  the  Bolivian 
country,  and  along  this  frontier  the  condi 
tions  as  regards  order  and  international  law  are 
much  what  they  were  on  the  border  between 
England  and  Scotland  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  man  who  cannot  protect  his  own  life  by 


158     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

his  own  fierce  and  wary  prowess  cannot  exist 
under  such  conditions,  and  the  cow -hands  must 
be  men  recklessly  ready  to  fight  for  their  cattle. 
The  Paraguayans  of  the  class  who  sought  em 
ployment  in  the  western  interior  of  Brazil  bore 
a  fighting,  and  somewhat  murderous,  reputation. 
They  were  a  daredevil  set,  and  under  men  of 
masterful  type  they  did  hard  and  dangerous 
work  for  their  employers. 

The  ordinary  ranches  where  we  stopped 
were  of  a  different  type.  The  houses  were  of 
one  story,  with  thick,  white  walls.  The  few 
rooms  were  furnished  only  with  rough  tables 
and  benches  and  rings  for  the  hammocks.  The 
unglazed  windows  were  fitted  with  solid  wooden 
shutters.  Outbuildings  stood  near  by;  one  per 
haps  for  a  kitchen;  sheds  for  skinning  or  for  the 
few  stores;  cabins  in  which  the  ranch-hands 
lived  with  their  families.  Palm-trees,  or  bananas 
with  huge,  ragged  leaves,  or  trees  unlike  any 
familiar  to  our  experience,  might  stand  near  by, 
close  to  the  big  cow  corrals.  On  the  poorer 
ranches  the  houses  were  nothing  but  log  skeletons 
thatched  with  palm-leaves. 

On  these  ranches  the  "camaradas,"  the  cow 
hands,  in  whose  company  we  hunted,  were  all 
native  Brazilians,  of  the  same  type  as  the  men 
whom  subsequently  we  took  with  us  on  our 


WILD  HUNTING  COMPANIONS     159 

voyage  of  exploration  down  the  Rio  da  Duvida 
to  the  Amazon.  It  was  a  simple,  primitive  ex 
istence.  All  the  industry  was  connected  with 
the  cattle  or  with  cultivating  the  tropical  vege 
tables  and  fruits  of  the  garden.  Two-wheeled 
ox-carts,  each  wheel  taller  than  a  man,  carried 
hides  and  smoked  flesh  to  the  river  landing 
where  native  boats,  or  now  and  then  light- 
draft  steamers,  were  moored.  After  sunset  the 
life  went  on  outdoors,  unless  it  rained,  until 
bedtime.  As  it  grew  dusk  the  doorways  and 
the  unglazed  windows,  standing  open,  showed 
only  empty  darkness  within.  The  cooking  was 
done  in  pots,  at  small  fires  outside.  Now  and 
then  some  one  played  a  guitar  or  banjo;  or  sang 
strange  songs,  light-hearted  songs  of  dances, 
melancholy  songs  of  love  or  of  death,  songs 
about  the  feats  of  men  and  of  bulls,  and  of 
famous  horses;  but  always  with  something 
queer  and  barbaric  as  if  they  came  from  a  time 
and  a  life  immeasurably  remote.  Always  the 
darkness  shrouded  from  us  the  hot,  furtive  life 
we  knew  it  held. 

These  poor  country  folk  were  on  the  whole 
a  kindly,  courteous  race;  it  was  pleasant  to 
have  them  known  as  "camaradas"  by  the  men 
of  the  upper  class.  They  represented  every 
shade  of  mixture  among  the  three  strains  of 


160     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

Portuguese,  Indian,  and  negro,  and  no  color- 
line  was  drawn  by  the  pure  bloods  of  any  of  the 
three  races.  Whatever  their  blood,  they  lived 
alike  and  dressed  alike.  There  were  very  curious 
customs  among  many  of  them,  customs  which 
were  probably  dying  out,  but  which  must 
surely  have  been  imported  from  utter  savagery, 
although  they  were  all  Christians  and  all  spoke 
Portuguese.  As  an  instance,  a  number  of  them, 
from  out-of-the-way  places,  but  including  at 
least  one  man  who  was  of  practically  pure  white 
blood,  had  the  edges  of  their  front  teeth  filed  so 
as  to  make  them  semicircular. 

When  we  hunted  we  would  leave  our  camp, 
or  the  ranch -house  where  we  had  slept,  before 
dawn.  The  hot  sun  flamed  red  above  the 
marshes  or  sent  long  shafts  of  crimson  light  be 
tween  the  palm  trunks.  It  might  be  evening 
before  we  returned.  The  heat  of  the  day  would 
be  spent  in  the  shade  near  a  pond,  and  often  our 
dusky  companions  would  then  get  into  long  con 
versations  with  us.  These  camaradas  usually 
rode  little  stallions,  but  sometimes  one  would 
be  mounted  on  a  trotting  ox,  which  was  guided 
by  a  string  through  the  nostrils.  Half -starved 
dogs  followed  behind.  The  men  carried  spears, 
rarely  firearms.  Their  hats  and  clothes,  their 
saddles  and  bridles  seemed  on  the  point  of  fall- 


WILD  HUNTING   COMPANIONS     161 

ing  to  pieces.  On  their  bare  feet  they  wore 
rusty  spurs,  and  the  stirrups  were  iron  rings,  in 
which  they  thrust  the  big  toe,  and  the  toe  next 
it.  But  no  antic  of  the  half-broken  horse  and 
no  difficulty  in  the  jungle  trail  made  the  slight 
est  impression  on  them.  They  were  only  fairly 
good  hunters  and  trailers,  and  when  in  thick 
forest  Kermit  with  his  compass  could  find  his 
way  better  than  they  could.  A  few  of  them 
hunted  the  jaguar  and  also  the  cashada,  the  big 
peccary  which  goes  in  herds  and  is  aggressive 
and  truculent;  but  most  of  them  let  the  danger 
ous  big  cat  and  the  dangerous  little  hogs  severely 
alone,  and  hunted  only  the  tapir,  deer,  and 
capybara.  The  rare  jaguars  that  become  man- 
eaters,  the  occasional  giant  anacondas,  the 
deadly  poisonous  snakes,  and  the  cashadas, 
were  all  the  subjects  of  superstitious  tales. 
They  were  shy  about  telling  these  stories  to 
persons  who  might  laugh,  but  if  assured  of  sym 
pathy  would  occasionally  unbend.  Then  they 
would  describe  how  man-eating  jaguars  were 
warlocks,  able  to  enslave  the  souls  of  those  they 
slew;  so  that  each  murdered  man  thenceforth 
served  the  dreadful  beast  that  had  eaten  him, 
guarded  him  from  danger,  and  guided  him  to 
fresh  victims;  or  they  would  tell  a  ghost-story 
I  never  quite  understood,  about  a  seemingly 


162     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

harmless  ghost,  white  and  without  any  arms, 
which  in  the  night-time  rode  the  biggest  peccary 
of  the  herd.  In  these  tales  the  giant  ant-eater 
always  appeared  as  a  comic  character,  a  figure 
of  fun,  although  with  a  somewhat  grim  ability 
to  take  care  of  himself;  it  was  he  who  would 
meet  drunken  men  and  embrace  them  with  his 
unpleasant  claws  and  then  hurry  them  home. 

The  camaradas  whom  we  took  with  us  on  our 
exploring  trip  were  mostly  drawn  from  among 
these  country  folk  of  the  ranches,  although  two 
or  three  came  from  the  coast  towns.  The  two 
best  hunters  were  Antonio  the  Paregis,  a  full- 
blood  Paregis  Indian,  and  Antonio  Correa,  an 
intelligent,  daredevil  mulatto,  probably  with 
also  a  dash  of  Indian  blood.  The  latter,  like 
several  other  of  our  men,  had  lived  among  the 
wild  Indians  and  had  adopted  some  of  their 
traits,  including  one  exceedingly  odd  matter  of 
dress.  Antonio  the  Paregis,  a  kindly,  faithful, 
stupid  soul,  had  abandoned  his  tribe,  come  into 
the  settlements,  and  married  a  dark  mulattress 
-  the  queer  result  being  that  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  country  their  children  would  be 
regarded  as  civilized  and  therefore  white.  An 
tonio  Correa  was  one  of  the  two  best  and  most 
trustworthy  men  on  the  trip;  uncomplaining, 
hardworking,  and  undaunted  in  time  of  peril. 


WILD  HUNTING   COMPANIONS     163 

When,  during  our  descent  of  the  unknown 
river,  we  reached  the  first  rubber  man's  house 
he  expressed  with  curious  eloquence  the  feel 
ing  we  all  had  at  hearing  around  us  again  the 
voices  of  men  and  women,  and  knowing  that 
the  chance  of  utter  disaster  was  over;  instead 
of  camping  at  night  in  the  midst  of  dangerous 
rapids,  while  every  hour  of  the  day  carried  its 
menace,  and  there  always  loomed  ahead  the 
danger  of  death  in  any  one  of  a  dozen  possible 
ways,  from  famine  to  fever  and  dysentery,  and 
from  drowning  to  battle  with  Indians.  When 
we  reached  the  first  rubber-gatherer's  store  the 
delicacy  which  all  our  men  most  eagerly  coveted 
was  condensed  milk,  and  to  my  amused  horror 
they  solemnly  proceeded  each  to  eat  a  canful 
of  the  sweet  and  sticky  luxury. 

Of  all  my  wilder  hunting  companions  those 
to  whom  I  became  most  attached  —  although 
some  of  them  were  the  wildest  of  all  —  were  those 
Kermit  and  I  had  \vith  us  in  Africa  for  eleven 
months.  Disregarding  a  very  problematical 
Christian,  these  were  either  Mohammedans  or 
heathens.  However,  after  having  been  in  our 
employ  a  little  while,  and  after  having  adopted 
the  fez,  jersey,  and  short  trousers  —  and,  as  a 
matter  of  pure  pride  and  symbolism,  boots  — 
they  all  regarded  themselves  as  of  an  elevated 


164     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

social  status,  and  openly  looked  down  on  the 
unregenerated  "shenzis"  or  natives  who  were 
still  in  the  kirtle-of -banana-leaves  cultural  stage. 
They  represented  many  different  tribes.  Some 
of  them  were  file-toothed  cannibals.  Many  of 
them  had  come  from  long  distances;  for  —  as 
philanthropists  will  do  well  to  note  —  being  even 
a  porter  in  a  white  man's  service  in  British  East 
Africa  or  Uganda  or  the  Soudan,  meant  an 
amount  of  pay  and  a  comfort  of  living  and 
(although  this,  I  think,  was  subordinate  in  their 
minds)  a  justness  of  treatment  which  they 
could  by  no  possibility  achieve  in  their  own 
homes  under  native  conditions.  As  for  the  per 
sonal  attendants,  the  gun-bearers,  tent-boys,  and 
saises,  as  well  as  the  head  men  and  askaris,  or 
soldiers,  they  felt  as  far  above  the  porters  as 
the  latter  did  above  the  shenzis.  The  common 
tongue  was  Swahili,  a  negro -Arab  dialect, 
originally  spoken  by  the  descendants,  mainly 
negro  in  blood,  of  the  Arab  conquerors,  traders, 
and  slave-raiders  of  Zanzibar.  This  is  a  lingo 
found  over  much  of  central  Africa.  But  only  a 
few  of  our  men  were  Swahilis  by  blood. 

Of  course,  most  of  them  were  like  children, 
with  a  grasshopper  inability  for  continuity  of 
thought  and  realization  of  the  future.  They 
would  often  act  with  an  inconsequence  that 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     165 

was  really  puzzling.  Dog-like  fidelity,  persevered 
in  for  months,  would  be  ended  by  a  fit  of  re 
sentment  at  something  unknown,  or  by  a  sheer 
volatility  which  made  them  abandon  their  jobs 
when  it  was  even  more  to  their  detriment  than 
to  ours.  But  they  had  certain  fixed  standards 
of  honor;  the  porter  would  not  abandon  his 
load,  the  gun-bearer  would  not  abandon  his 
master  when  in  danger  from  a  charging  beast  - 
although,  unless  a  first-class  man,  he  might  at 
that  critical  moment  need  discipline  to  restrain 
his  nervous  excitability.  They  appreciated  jus 
tice,  but  they  were  neither  happy  nor  well  be 
haved  unless  they  were  under  authority;  weak 
ness  toward  them  was  even  more  ruinous  than 
harshness  and  overseverity. 

The  personal  attendants  of  Kermit  and  my 
self  established  a  kind  of  "chief  petty  officers' 
mess"  in  the  caravan.  Not  only  his  own  boys, 
but  mine,  really  cared  more  for  Kermit  than 
they  did  for  me.  This  was  partly  because  he 
spoke  Swahili;  partly  because  he  could  see 
game,  follow  its  tracks,  and  walk  as  I  could  not; 
and  partly  because  he  exercised  more  strict  con 
trol  over  his  men  and  yet  more  thought  and  care 
in  giving  them  their  pleasures  and  rewards.  I 
was  apt  to  become  amused  and  therefore  too 
lenient  in  dealing  with  grasshopper-like  failings 


166     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

-  which  was  bad  for  the  grasshoppers  them 
selves;  and,  moreover,  I  was  apt  to  announce 
to  a  man  who  had  deserved  well  that  he  should 
receive  so  many  rupees  at  the  end  of  the  trip, 
which  to  him  seemed  a  prophecy  about  the 
somewhat  remote  future,  whereas  Kermit  gave 
less,  but  gave  it  in  more  immediate  form,  such 
as  sugar  or  tea,  and  rupees  to  be  expended  in 
the  first  Indian  or  Swahili  trader's  store  we 
met;  on  which  occasions  I  would  see  Kermit 
head  a  solemn  procession  of  both  his  followers 
and  mine  to  the  store,  where  he  would  super 
intend  their  purchases,  not  only  helping  them 
to  make  up  vacillating  minds  but  seeing  that 
they  were  not  cheated. 

An  exception  was  my  head  tent-boy,  Ali.  He 
had  a  good  deal  of  Arab  blood  in  him,  he 
spoke  a  little  English,  he  was  really  intelligent, 
he  was  an  innately  loyal  soul,  and  he  was 
keenly  alive  to  the  honor  of  being  the  fore 
most  attendant  of  the  head  of  the  expedition. 
He  was  distinctly  an  autocrat  to  the  second 
tent-boy,  whose  tenure  was  apt  to  be  short,  and 
he  regarded  Somalis  with  professional  rivalry 
and  distrust.  He  always  did  his  work  excel 
lently,  and  during  the  eleven  months  he  was 
with  me  I  never  had  to  correct  or  rebuke  him, 
and  whenever  I  had  a  bout  of  fever  he  was  de- 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     167 

votion  itself.  Once,  while  at  a  friend's  house, 
his  Somali  stole  some  silver  from  me,  after 
which  Ali  always  kept  my  silver  himself  with 
scrupulous  honesty.  I  still  now  and  then  get 
a  letter  from  him,  but  as  the  letters  are  sent 
through  some  professional  Hindoo  scribe  they 
are  of  value  chiefly  as  tokens  of  affection.  The 
last  one,  written  in  acknowledgment  of  a  gift 
sent  him,  contained  a  rather  long  letter  in 
Swahili,  a  translation  into  Arabic,  and  then  a 
would-be  translation  into  English,  which,  how 
ever,  went  no  further  than  the  cumulative 
repetition  of  all  the  expressions  of  ceremonious 
regard  known  to  the  scribe. 

My  head  gun-bearer,  named  Hartebeest - 
Kongoni  -  -  also  did  his  work  so  well  that  I 
never  had  to  reprove  him;  he  was  cool  and 
game,  a  good  tracker  and  tireless  walker.  But 
the  second  gun-bearer,  Gouvimali,  although  a 
cheerful  and  willing  soul,  tended  to  get  rattled 
when  near  dangerous  animals.  Unless  his 
master  is  really  in  the  grip  of  an  animal,  the 
worst  sin  a  gun-bearer  can  commit,  next  to 
running  away,  is  to  shoot  the  gun  he  is  carry 
ing;  for,  if  the  master  is  fit  to  hunt  dangerous 
game  at  all,  it  is  he  who  must  do  the  killing, 
and,  if  in  a  tight  place,  he  must  be  able  to  count 
with  absolute  certainty  on  the  gun-bearer's 


168     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

handing  him  a  loaded  rifle  when  his  own  has 
been  fired.  On  one  occasion  I  was  covering  a 
rhino  which  Kermit  was  trying  to  photograph. 
The  beast  was  very  close  and  seemed  about  to 
begin  hostilities.  Gouvimali  became  very  much 
excited  and  raised  his  rifle  to  shoot.  I  over 
heard  Kongoni  chide  him,  and  I  spoke  to  him 
sharply,  but  he  still  kept  the  rifle  at  his  shoulder; 
whereupon  I  slapped  his  face  just  before  shoot 
ing  the  rhino.  This  prevented  his  firing  and 
brought  him  to  his  senses,  but  was  not  a  suf 
ficient  punishment.  The  really  dreadful  pun 
ishment  would  have  been  to  send  him  back  to 
the  ranks  of  the  porters.  But  I  wished  to  give 
him  another  chance;  so  next  morning  I  in 
structed  Ali  that  he  was  to  be  my  interpreter, 
and  that  Gouvimali  was  to  be  brought  up  for 
justice  before  my  tent.  To  make  it  impressive, 
Kongoni  and  the  second  tent-boy  were  sum 
moned  to  attend,  which  they  did  with  pleased 
anticipation.  But  they  were  not  alone.  All 
of  Kermit's  attendants  rushed  gleefully  over, 
including  his  two  first-class  gun-bearers,  his 
camera-bearer,  the  wild  'Nmwezi  ex-cannibal 
whom  he  had  turned  into  a  devoted  and  ex 
cellent  tent-boy,  and  the  cheerful  Kikuyu 
savage  who  had  taken  naturally  to  being  sais 
for  his  and  my  little  mules.  The  sympathies 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     169 

of  all  of  them  were  ostentatiously  against  the 
culprit,  and  they  were  prepared  for  the  virtuous 
enjoyment  characteristic  of  the  orthodox  sure- 
of-their-salvation  at  a  heresy  trial. 

Court  opened  with  me  in  my  camp-chair  in 
front  of  the  tent.  Ali  stood  beside  me,  erect 
with  gratified  horror,  and  eager  to  show  that 
he  was  not  merely  an  interpreter  but  a  prose 
cutor  and  assistant  judge.  Abject  Gouvimali 
stood  in  front,  with  head  hanging.  The  others 
ranged  themselves  in  a  semicircle,  and  filled 
the  function  of  a  Greek  chorus.  The  proceed 
ings  were  as  follows: 

I  (with  frowning  majesty):  "Tell  Gouvimali  he  knows 
that  I  have  treated  him  very,  very  well;  besides  his  wages, 
I  have  given  him  tea  and  sugar  and  tobacco  and  a  red 
blanket." 

Ali  translates  with  the  thunderous  eloquence  of  Cicero 
against  Verres;  Verres  writhes. 

Chorus  (with  hands  raised  at  the  thought  of  such 
magnificent  generosity):  "Oh,  what  a  good  Bwana!" 

I  (reproachfully):  "Whenever  I  shot  a  lion  or  an  ele 
phant  I  gave  him  some  silver  rupees." 

Ali  translates  this  with  a  voice  shaken  by  emotion  over 
the  human  baseness  that  could  forget  such  gifts. 

Chorus  (in  ecstatic  contemplation  of  my  virtue):  "Oh, 
what  a  generous  Bwana!" 

I  (leaning  forward  toward  the  accused):  "And  yet  he 
started  to  shoot  at  a  rhinoceros  the  Bwana  Merodadi 
[Dandy  Master,  the  Master  who  was  a  dandy  to  shoot  and 
ride  and  get  game]  was  photographing." 


170     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

All  fairly  hisses  this  statement;  malefactor  shudders. 

Chorus  (almost  bereft  of  speech  at  the  revelation  of  a 
depravity  of  which  they  had  never  hitherto  dreamed) : 
"Hau!  W-a-u!!" 

I  (severe,  but  melancholy):  "You  didn't  stop  until  I 
had  to  slap  your  face." 

Chorus  (with  unctuous  relish):  "The  Bwana  ought  to 
have  beaten  you !" 

I:  "Do  you  wish  to  become  a  porter  again?  There's 
a  Kavirondo  porter  very  anxious  to  get  your  job  !"  (De 
ceitfully  concealing  a  vagueness  of  recollection  about  this 
aspirant,  who  had  been  pronounced  worthless.) 

Malefactor  (overcome  by  suggestion  of  the  semimythical 
Kavirondo  rival) :  "Oh,  Bwana,  have  me  beaten,  but  keep 
me  as  gun-bearer  ! " 

I  (with  regal  beneficence):  "Well,  I'll  fine  you  ten 
rupees;  and  if  you  make  another  break,  out  you  go; 
and  you're  to  do  all  Kongoni's  gun-cleaning  for  a  week." 
(Kongoni,  endeavoring  to  look  both  austere  and  disin 
terested,  pokes  malefactor  in  back.) 

Chorus  (disappointed  of  a  tragedy,  but  fundamentally 
kind-hearted):  "What  a  merciful  Bwana!  And  now 
Gouvimali  will  always  be  careful!  Good  Gouvimali!" 

On  another  occasion,  on  the  White  Nile,  I 
one  day  took  with  me,  to  show  me  game,  two 
natives  of  a  village  near  our  camp.  I  shot  a 
roan  antelope.  It  was  mortally  wounded;  one 
of  the  natives,  the  "shenzis,"  saw  it  fall  but 
said  nothing  and  slipped  away  to  get  the  horns 
and  meat  for  himself.  Later,  Kongoni  became 
suspicious,  and  very  acutely  —  for  he  was  not 
only  a  master  of  hunting  craft  but  also  pos- 


WILD  HUNTING  COMPANIONS    171 

sessed  a  sympathetic  insight  into  the  shenzi 
inind  —  led  us  to  the  spot  and  caught  the  of 
fender,  and  a  party  of  the  villagers,  red-handed. 
Kongoni  and  Gouvimali  pounced  on  the  faithless 
guide,  while  the  others  scattered;  and  the  sais, 
unable  to  resist  having  something  to  do  with 
the  fray,  handed  the  led  mule  to  a  small  naked 
boy,  rushed  forward,  gave  the  captive  a  thump, 
and  then  returned  to  his  mule.  The  offender 
was  brought  to  camp  and  put  under  guard  — 
evidently  horribly  afraid  we  would  eat  him  in 
stead  of  the  now  far-gone  roan.  Next  day 
Kermit  got  home  from  his  hunt  before  I  did. 
When  I  reached  camp  I  found  Kermit  sitting 
with  a  book  and  his  pipe  under  a  great  tree,  in 
his  camp-chair.  The  captive  was  tied  with  a 
string  to  the  huge  tree  trunk.  He  sat  on  the 
ground  and  uttered  hollow  groans  whenever  he 
thought  they  would  be  effective.  At  nightfall 
we  released  him,  keeping  his  knife,  which  we 
required  him  to  redeem  with  a  chicken;  and 
when  he  returned  with  the  chicken  we  bade 
him  give  it  to  Kongoni,  to  whom  we  owed  the 
discovery  of  the  roan. 

In  some  of  the  wilder  and  more  lonely  camps 
these  body-servants  were  my  only  companions, 
together  with  some  shenzi  porters;  at  others 
Kermit  was  with  me,  also  with  his  tail  of  de- 


172     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

voted  personal  attendants.  Where  the  game 
swarmed  and  no  human  beings  existed  for  many 
leagues  round  about  we  built  circular  fences  of 
thorns  to  keep  out  beasts  of  prey.  The  porters, 
chanting  a  monotonous  refrain,  brought  in 
wood  to  keep  the  watch-fires  going  all  night. 
Supper  was  cooked  and  eaten.  Then  we  sat 
and  listened  to  the  fierce  and  eager  life  that 
went  on  in  the  darkness  outside.  Hoofs  thun 
dered  now  and  then,  there  were  snortings  and 
grun tings,  occasional  bello wings  or  roarings,  or 
angry  whinings,  of  fear  or  of  cruel  hunger  or  of 
savage  love-making;  ever  there  was  a  skipping 
and  running  of  beasts  unseen;  for  out  there  in 
the  darkness  a  game  as  old  as  the  world  was 
being  played,  a  game  without  any  rules,  where 
the  forfeit  was  death. 

Generally  the  wild  creatures  were  not  so 
close  even  at  these  lonely  camps,  and  we  did 
not  have  to  guard  against  attack,  although 
there  were  always  sentries  and  watch-fires,  and 
we  always  slept  with  our  loaded  rifles  beside 
us.  After  dinner  the  tent-boys  and  gun-bearers 
would  talk  and  laugh,  or  tell  stories,  or  listen 
while  one  of  their  number,  Kermit's  first  gun- 
bearer,  a  huge,  absolutely  honest,  coal-black 
negro  from  south  of  the  Victorian  Lake, 
strummed  on  an  odd  little  native  harp;  and 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     173 

one  of  them  might  improvise  a  song.  It  was 
usually  a  very  simple  song;  perhaps  about  some 
thing  Kermit  or  I  had  done  during  the  day, 
and  of  how  we  lived  far  away  in  an  unknown 
land  across  vast  oceans  but  had  come  to  Africa 
with  wonderful  rifles  to  kill  lions  and  elephants. 
Once  the  song  was  merely  an  expression  of 
gratified  approval  of  the  quality  of  the  meat 
of  an  eland  I  had  shot  during  the  day.  Once  we 
listened  to  a  really  humorous  song  describing 
the  disapproval  of  the  women  about  something 
their  husbands  had  done,  the  shrill  scolding  of 
the  women  being  mimicked  with  much  effect. 
Some  of  the  songs  dealt  with  traditions  and  ex 
periences  which  I  did  not  understand,  and  which 
were  probably  far  more  interesting  than  any 
that  I  did  understand. 

My  gun-bearers  accompanied  me  whenever 
I  visited  the  native  villages  of  the  different 
tribes.  These  tribes  differed  widely  from  one 
another  in  almost  every  respect.  In  Uganda 
my  men  stood  behind  me  when  some  dignified 
and  formally  polite  chief  or  great  noble  came  to 
visit  me;  clothed  in  white,  and  perhaps  dragged 
in  a  rickshaw  or  riding  a  mule  with  silver  trap 
pings,  while  his  drummer  beat  on  the  huge  native 
drum  the  distinctive  clan  tune  which,  when  he 
walked  abroad,  bade  all  take  notice  just  who 


174     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

the  noble  was,  distinguishing  him  from  all  the 
other  great  lords,  each  of  whom  also  had  his 
own  especial  tune.  My  men  strode  at  my  back 
when  I  approached  the  rest-houses  that  were 
made  ready  for  me,  as  we  walked  from  one  to 
the  other  of  the  two  Nyanzas;  palm-thatched 
rest-houses  before  which  the  musicians  of  the 
local  chiefs  received  me  with  drum-beat,  and 
the  hollow  booming  of  bamboos,  and  rattling 
of  gourds,  and  the  clashing  of  metal  on  metal, 
and  the  twanging  of  instruments  of  many 
strings.  They  accompanied  me  to  the  rings  of 
square  huts,  plastered  with  cow-dung,  where  the 
Masai  herdsmen  dwelt,  guarding  their  cattle, 
goats,  and  wire-haired  sheep;  and  to  the  no 
mad  camps  of  the  camel-owning  Samburu,  on 
thorn-covered  flats  from  which  we  looked  south 
ward  toward  the  mighty  equatorial  snow  peak 
of  Kenia.  They  stood  with  me  to  gaze  at  the 
midnight  dances  of  the  Kikuyu.  They  followed 
me  among  the  villages  of  beehive  huts  in  the 
lands  of  the  naked  savages  along  the  upper 
Nile. 

Ali  always,  no  matter  how  untoward  the  sur 
roundings,  had  things  ready  and  comfortable 
for  me  at  night  when  I  came  in.  My  gun- 
bearers  trudged  behind  me  all  day  long  over  the 
plains  where  the  heat  haze  danced,  or  through 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     175 

the  marshes,  or  in  the  twilight  of  the  tropic 
forests.  After  dark  they  always  guided  me 
back  to  camp  if  there  were  any  landmarks;  but, 
curiously  enough,  if  we  had  to  steer  by  the 
stars,  I  had  to  do  the  guiding.  They  were  al 
ways  alert  for  game.  They  were  fine  trackers. 
They  never  complained.  They  were  always  at 
my  elbows  when  we  had  to  deal  with  some 
dangerous  beast.  It  is  small  wonder  I  became 
attached  to  them.  All  of  Kermit's  and  my 
personal  attendants  went  with  us  to  Cairo, 
whence  we  shipped  them  back  to  Zanzibar. 
They  earnestly  besought  us  to  take  them  to 
America.  Cairo,  of  course,  both  enchanted  and 
cowed  them.  What  they  most  enjoyed  while 
there  was  when  Kermit  took  them  all  out  in 
taxis  to  the  zoo.  They  were  children  of  the 
wilderness;  their  brains  were  in  a  whirl  because 
of  the  big  city;  it  made  them  feel  at  home  to 
see  the  wild  things  they  knew,  and  it  interested 
them  greatly  to  see  the  other  wild  things  which 
were  so  different  from  what  they  knew. 

In  the  old  days,  on  the  great  plains  and  in 
the  Rockies,  I  went  out  occasionally  with  In 
dians  or  half-breeds;  Kermit  went  after  moun 
tain-sheep  in  the  desert  with  a  couple  of  Mexican 
packers;  and  Archie,  Quentin,  and  I,  while  in 
Arizona,  travelled  on  one  occasion  with  a  Mex- 


176     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

ican  wagon-driver  and  a  Navajo  cook  (both 
good  men),  and  once  or  twice  for  a  day  or  two 
at  a  time  with  Navajos  or  Utes  to  act  as  guides 
or  horse-herders.  On  a  hunting  trip  after  white 
goat  and  deer  in  the  Canadian  Rockies  Archie 
went  with  a  guide  who  turned  out  to  be  from 
Arizona,  and  who  almost  fell  on  Archie's  neck 
with  joy  at  meeting  a  compatriot  from  the 
Southwest.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Texas  ranger 
and  a  Cherokee  mother,  was  one  of  a  family  of 
twenty -four  children  —  all  native  American 
families  are  not  dying  out,  thank  heaven !  - 
and  was  a  first-class  rifle-shot  and  hunter. 

The  Indians  with  whom  I  hunted  were  hardy, 
quick  to  see  game,  and  good  at  approaching 
it,  but  were  not  good  shots,  and  as  trackers 
and  readers  of  sign  did  not  compare  with  the 
'Ndorobo  of  the  east  African  forests.  I  always 
became  good  friends  with  them,  and  when  they 
became  assured  that  I  was  sympathetic  and 
would  not  laugh  at  them  they  finally  grew  to 
talk  freely  to  me,  and  tell  me  stories  and  legends 
of  goblins  and  ghost-beasts  and  of  the  ancient 
days  when  animals  talked  like  men.  Most  of 
what  they  said  I  could  not  understand,  for  I 
did  not  speak  their  tongues;  and  they  talked 
without  restraint  only  when  I  sat  quiet  and 
did  not  interrupt  them.  Occasionally  one  who 


WILD  HUNTING   COMPANIONS     177 

spoke  English,  or  a  half-breed,  and  in  one  case 
a  French -Canadian  who  had  lived  long  with 
them,  translated  the  stories  to  me.  They  were 
fairy-tales  and  folk-tales  -  - 1  do  not  know  the 
proper  terminology.  Where  they  dealt  with  the 
action  of  either  men  or  gods  they  were  as  free 
from  moral  implication  as  if  they  came  out  of 
the  Book  of  Judges;  and  throughout  there  was 
a  certain  inconsequence,  an  apparent  absence 
of  motive  in  what  was  done,  and  an  equal 
absence  of  any  feeling  for  the  need  of  explana 
tion.  They  were  people  still  in  the  hunting 
stage,  to  whom  hunting  lore  meant  much,  and 
many  of  the  tales  were  of  supernatural  beasts. 
On  the  actions  of  these  unearthly  creatures 
might  depend  the  success  of  the  chase  of  their 
earthly  relatives;  or  it  might  be  necessary  to 
placate  them  to  avoid  evil;  or  their  deeds 
might  be  either  beneficent  or  menacing  without 
reference  to  what  men  did,  whether  in  praise  or 
prayer.  Such  beings  of  the  other  world  were 
the  spirit-bear  of  the  Navajos;  and  the  ghost- 
wolf  of  the  Pawnees,  to  whom  one  of  my  troop 
ers  before  Santiago,  an  educated,  full-blood 
Pawnee,  once  suddenly  alluded;  and  the  spirit- 
buffaloes  of  whom  the  Sioux  and  the  Mandans 
told  endless  stories,  who  came  up  from  some 
where  underground  in  the  far  north,  who  at 


178     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

night  played  games  like  those  of  human  war 
riors  in  the  daytime,  who  were  malicious  and 
might  steal  men  and  women,  but  who  might 
also  bring  to  the  Indians  the  vast  herds  whose 
presence  meant  plenty  and  whose  absence  star 
vation.  Almost  everywhere  the  coyote  ap 
peared  as  a  sharp,  tricky  hero,  in  adventures 
having  to  do  with  beasts  and  men  and  magic 
things.  He  played  the  part  of  Br'  Rabbit  in 
Uncle  Remus. 

Now  and  then  a  ghost-tale  would  have  in  it 
an  element  of  horror.  The  northern  Indians 
dwell  in  or  on  the  borders  of  the  vast  and  mel 
ancholy  boreal  forests,  where  the  winter-time  al 
ways  brings  with  it  the  threat  of  famine,  where 
any  accident  to  the  solitary  wanderer  may  mean 
his  death,  and  may  mean  also  that  his  body 
will  never  be  found.  In  the  awful  loneliness  of 
that  forest  there  are  stretches  as  wide  as  many 
a  kingdom  of  Europe  to  which  for  decades  at  a 
time  no  man  ever  goes.  In  the  summer  there 
is  sunlit  life  in  the  forest;  flowers  bloom,  birds 
sing,  and  the  wind  sighs  through  the  budding 
branches.  In  the  winter  there  is  iron  desola 
tion;  the  bitter  blasts  sweep  from  the  north, 
the  driven  ice  dust  sears  the  face,  the  snow  lies 
far  above  a  tall  man's  height,  in  their  icy  beds 
the  rivers  lie  fixed  like  shining  steel.  It  is 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     179 

a  sombre  land,  where  death  ever  lurks  behind 
the  traveller.  To  the  Indian  its  recesses  are 
haunted  by  dread  beings  malevolent  to  man. 
Around  the  camp-fires,  when  the  frosts  of  fall 
were  heavy,  I  have  heard  the  Indians  talk  of  the 
oncoming  winter  and  of  things  seen  at  twilight 
and  sensed  after  nightfall  by  the  trapper  or  be 
lated  wayfarer  when  the  cold  that  gripped  the 
body  began  also  to  grip  the  heart.  They  told 
of  the  windigoes  which  leaped  and  flew  through 
the  frozen  air,  and  left  huge  footprints  on  the 
snow,  and  drove  to  madness  and  death  men 
by  lonely  camp-fires.  They  told  of  the  snow- 
walkers;  how  once  a  moose  hunter,  on  webbed 
snow-shoes,  bound  campward  in  the  late  after 
noon  saw  a  dim  figure  walking  afar  off  on  the 
crust  of  the  snow  parallel  to  him  among  the 
tree  trunks;  how  as  the  afternoon  waned  the 
figure  came  gradually  nearer,  until  he  saw  that 
it  was  shrouded  in  some  garment  which  wrapped 
even  its  head;  how  in  the  gray  dusk  that  fol 
lowed  the  sunset  it  came  always  closer,  until  he 
could  see  that  what  should  have  been  its  face 
was  like  the  snout  of  a  wolf,  and  that  through  a 
crack  left  bare  by  the  shroud  its  eyes  burned 
evil,  baleful;  how  his  heart  was  palsied  with 
the  awful  terror  of  the  unknown,  of  the  dead 
that  was  not  dead;  and  how  suddenly  he  came 


180     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

on  two  other  men,  and  the  thing  that  had  dogged 
him  turned  and  vanished,  and  they  could  find 
no  footprints  on  the  snow. 

More  often  the  story  would  be  nothing  but  a 
story,  perhaps  about  birds  or  beasts.  Once  I 
heard  a  Kootenai  tell  such  a  story;  but  he  said 
he  had  heard  it  very  far  north,  and  that  it  was 
not  a  Kootenai  story.  It  explained  why  the 
loon  has  small  wings  and  why  the  partridges 
in  the  north  turn  white  in  winter. 

It  happened  very  long  ago.  In  those  days 
there  was  no  winter  and  the  loon  had  ordinary 
wings  and  flew  around  like  a  raven.  One  mid 
day  the  partridges  were  having  tea  on  a  sand- 
point  in  a  lake  where  there  were  small  willows 
and  blueberry  bushes.  The  loon  wished  to 
take  tea  with  them,  but  they  crowed  and 
chuckled  and  they  would  not  let  him.  So  he 
began  to  call  in  a  very  loud  voice  a  long  call, 
almost  like  the  baying  of  a  wolf;  you  can  hear 
it  now  on  the  lakes.  He  called  and  he  called, 
longer  and  louder.  He  was  calling  the  spirit  who 
dwells  in  the  north,  so  far  that  no  man  has  ever 
known  where  it  is.  The  spirit  was  asleep.  But 
the  loon's  medicine  was  very  strong  and  he 
called  until  the  spirit  woke  up.  The  spirit  sent 
the  North  Wind  down  —  he  was  the  North 
Wind  —  and  the  snow  came,  and  summer  passed 


WILD  HUNTING   COMPANIONS    181 

away.  The  partridges  no  longer  crowed  and 
chuckled.  Some  of  them  flew  away  south. 
The  others  turned  white;  you  can  see  them  now 
very  far  north,  but  in  the  south  only  on  the 
mountains.  Then  the  loon  began  to  laugh,  for 
he  was  very  glad  and  proud.  He  laughed  louder 
and  louder;  you  can  hear  him  now  on  the  lakes. 
But  the  spirit  was  very  angry  because  the  loon 
had  called  him.  He  began  to  blow  on  the  lake 
and  he  began  to  blow  on  the  loon.  The  lake  be 
gan  to  freeze  and  the  loon  began  to  dive,  longer 
and  longer.  But  his  wings  began  to  grow  smaller. 
So  with  great  difficulty,  before  his  wings  were 
too  small,  he  rose  and  his  wings  beat  very  rapidly 
and  he  flew  away  south.  That  is  why  winter 
came  and  why  the  loon  dives  so  well  and  does 
not  fly  if  he  can  help  it. 

In  the  cane-brakes  on  both  sides  of  the  lower 
Mississippi  I  have  hunted  bear  in  company 
with  the  hard-riding,  straight-shooting  planters 
of  the  country  lying  behind  the  levees  —  and  a 
gamer,  more  open-handedly  hospitable  set  of 
men  can  nowhere  be  found.  What  would, 
abroad,  be  called  the  hunt  servants  were  all 
negroes  from  the  Black  Belt,  in  which  we  were 
doing  our  hunting.  These  negroes  of  the  Black 
Belt  have  never  had  the  opportunity  to  develop 
beyond  a  low  cultural  stage.  Most  of  those 


182     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

with  us  were  kindly,  hard-working  men,  expert 
in  their  profession.  One,  who  handled  the 
hounds  of  two  Mississippi  planters,  was  a  man 
in  many  respects  of  really  high  and  fine  char 
acter;  although  in  certain  other  respects  his 
moral  standards  were  too  nearly  those  of  some 
of  the  Old  Testament  patriarchs  to  be  quite 
suitable  for  the  present  century.  These  black 
hunters  possessed  an  extensive  and  on  the 
whole  accurate  knowledge  of  the  habits  of  the 
wild  creatures,  and  yet  mingled  with  this  knowl 
edge  was  a  mass  of  firmly  held  nonsense  about 
hoop-snakes,  snakes  with  poisonous  stings  in 
their  tails,  and  the  like.  Most,  although  not 
all,  of  them  were  very  superstitious  and  easily 
frightened  if  alone  at  night.  Their  ghost- 
stories  were  sometimes  to  me  quite  senseless; 
I  did  not  know  enough  of  the  workings  of  their 
minds  to  understand  what  they  meant.  Those 
stories  that  were  understandable  usually  had  in 
them  something  of  the  grotesque  and  the  inade 
quate.  By  daylight  the  black  hunters  would 
themselves  laugh  at  their  own  fears;  and  even 
at  night,  when  fully  believing  what  they  were 
telling,  they  would  seriously  insert  details  that 
struck  us  as  too  comic  for  grave  acceptance. 
The  story  that  most  insistently  lingers  in  my 
mind  will  explain  my  meaning. 


WILD  HUNTING  COMPANIONS     183 

Back  in  the  swamp  among  cypress  ponds 
was  an  abandoned  plantation  which  had  the 
reputation  of  being  haunted.  The  "big  house," 
the  planter's  house,  had  been  dismantled  but 
was  still  standing  in  fair  condition.  In  the 
neighborhood  there  was  a  powerful  negro  scape 
grace  much  given  to  boasting  that  he  feared  no 
ghost;  and  the  local  judge  finally  offered  him 
five  dollars  if  he  would  go  alone  after  nightfall 
to  the  house  in  question  and  stay  there  until 
sunrise.  The  negro  accepted  with  the  stipula 
tion  that  he  was  to  be  allowed  to  light  a  lamp 
that  had  been  left  in  the  house.  The  story 
teller,  who  was  as  black  as  a  shoe  and  a  good 
man  in  the  swamp  after  bear,  told  the  tale  as 
follows.  I  cannot  pretend,  however,  to  give  his 
exact  expressions. 

"Jake  started  after  sunset.  The  moon  was  a 
little  more  than  half  full,  and  it  was  a  sure- 
enough  lonely  walk  through  the  cypress  woods 
along  the  abandoned,  overgrown  road.  The 
branches  kept  waving  and  the  moonlight  flick 
ered  on  the  ground,  and  Jake  couldn't  see  any 
thing  clearly  and  yet  could  see  a  good  deal,  and 
strange  noises  came  from  the  swamp  on  both 
sides.  He  was  glad  to  get  to  the  clearing,  but 
it  was  overgrown,  too.  The  house  shone  white 
in  the  moonlight,  but  the  staring,  open  windows 


184     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

were  black,  and  all  inside  was  coal-black  beyond 
the  moonlight,  and  he  didn't  know  whether  it 
was  empty  or  whether  he  most  wished  it  was  or 
wasn't  empty.  But  he  went  inside  and  lit  the 
lamp  and  put  it  on  a  table  and  sat  down  beside 
it.  Nothing  happened  for  a  long  time  except 
that  he  kept  hearing  queer  things  in  the  swamp 
and  sometimes  something  went  across  the  clear 
ing.  At  last  a  clock  struck  twelve,  but  he  knew 
there  wasn't  any  clock  in  the  house.  Just  as  soon 
as  it  had  finished  striking,  a  monstrous  big  black 
cat  walked  into  the  room  and  jumped  on  the 
table  and  wropped  his  tail  three  times  round 
the  lamp-chimney  and  said:  'Nigger,  you  and  I 
is  the  onliest  things  in  this  house!'  And  Jake 
said:  'Mr.  Black  Cat,  in  one  second  you'll  be 
the  onliest  thing  in  this  house,'  and  he  went 
through  the  window.  He  run  hard  down  the 
road,  and  pretty  soon  there  was  a  crashing  in 
the  underbrush  and  a  big  buck,  with  horns  on 
him  like  a  rocking-chair,  came  up  alongside  and 
said:  'Well,  nigger,  you  must  be  losing  your 
wind/  and  he  answered  mighty  polite:  'Mr. 
Buck,  I  ain't  even  begun  to  catch  my  wind,'  and 
he  sure  left  that  buck  behind.  And  he  ran  and 
he  ran  until  he  did  lose  his  wind,  and  he  sat 
down  on  a  log.  And  there  was  a  patter  of  foot 
steps  behind  and  somebody  came  up  the  road 


WILD  HUNTING   COMPANIONS     185 

and  sat  down  on  the  log  too.  It  was  a  white 
man,  and  he  carried  his  head  in  his  hand.  The 
head  spoke:  'Well,  nigger,  you  surely  can  run!' 
and  Jake  he  answered:  'Mr.  White  Man,  you 
ain't  never  seen  me  run/  and  then  he  did  run. 
And  he  came  to  the  judge's  and  he  beat  on  the 
door  and  called  out:  'Judge,  I'se  come  back; 
and,  Judge,  I  don't  want  that  five  dollars!' 

The  planter  in  connection  with  whose  hounds 
the  negro  worked  told  me  that  this  was  a  ghost- 
story  that  for  a  year  had  been  told  everywhere 
among  the  colored  folk,  but  about  all  kinds  of 
houses  and  people,  and  that  the  narrator  didn't 
really  believe  it;  but  that,  nevertheless,  he  be 
lieved  enough  of  it  to  be  afraid  of  empty  houses 
after  dark,  and  moreover  that  he  had  been  fright 
ened  into  leaving  a  swamp  planter's  pigs  en 
tirely  alone  by  the  planter's  playing  ghost  and 
calling  out  to  him  at  nightfall  as  he,  the  negro, 
was  travelling  a  lonely  road  with  possible  in 
nocence  of  motive. 

Strongly  contrasted  with  such  more  than  half 
comic  or  grotesque  ghost-stories  was  one  told 
me  once,  not  by  a  hunting  companion  but  by  a 
polished  and  cultivated  Tahitian  gentleman,  a 
guest  of  Henry  Adams  in  Washington.  His 
creed  was  the  creed  of  his  present  surroundings ; 
but  back  of  the  beyond  in  his  mind  lurked  old 


186     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

tales,  and  old  faiths  glowed  with  a  moment's 
flame  at  certain  hours  under  certain  conditions. 
One  evening  some  of  those  present  were  talking 
of  inexplicable  things  that  had  happened  on 
the  shifting  borders  between  life  and  death,  be 
tween  the  known  and  the  unknown;  and  of 
vampires  and  werewolves  and  the  ghosts  of 
things  long  gone.  Suddenly  the  Tahitian  told 
of  an  experience  of  his  mother's  when  she  was  an 
imperious  queen  in  the  far-off  Polynesian  island. 
She  had  directed  her  people  to  build  a  bridge 
across  the  mouth  of  a  stream.  After  dark 
something  came  out  of  the  water  and  killed  one 
of  the  men,  and  the  others  returned  to  her, 
saying  that  the  spirit  which  dwelt  in  the  stream 
was  evil  and  would  kill  all  of  them  if  they  per 
severed  in  their  work.  She  answered  that  her 
own  family  spirit,  the  familiar  or  ghost  of  the 
family,  was  very  strong  and  would  protect  her 
people  if  she  were  present.  Next  day,  accord 
ingly,  she  went  down  in  person  to  superintend 
the  building  of  the  bridge.  She  took  with  her 
two  little  tame  pigs — pet  pigs.  All  went  well 
until  evening  came.  Then  suddenly  a  chill 
gust  of  wind  blew  from  the  river  mouth,  and  in 
a  moment  the  workmen  fled,  screaming  that  the 
spirit  of  the  water  was  upon  them.  Almost 
immediately  afterward  there  was  a  hubbub  of  a 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     187 

totally  different  kind;  and  after  listening  a 
moment  the  queen  spoke,  telling  that  her  spirit 
had  arrived,  had  overcome  the  other  spirit,  and 
was  chasing  him.  In  another  moment  one  of 
her  girls  called  out  that  the  little  pigs  were 
dead.  The  queen  put  out  her  hand  and  touched 
them;  they  were  quite  cold.  The  defeated  spirit 
was  hiding  in  them!  But  as  she  felt  them  they 
began  to  grow  warm  and  come  to  life.  Her 
familiar  had  followed  the  evil  ghost  into  his 
hiding-place  in  the  pigs,  had  chased  him  out,  and 
slew  him  as  he  fled  to  the  water.  There  was 
no  further  interruption  to  the  building  of  the 
bridge. 

The  touch  about  the  defeated  spirit  hiding  in 
the  pet  pigs,  which  thereupon  grew  cold,  and 
being  chased  out  by  his  antagonist  was  thor 
oughly  Polynesian.  It  was  most  interesting  to 
see  the  cultivated  man  of  the  world  suddenly  go 
back  to  superstitions  that  marked  the  child 
hood  of  the  race;  and  then  he  told  tales  of  the 
shark  god,  and  of  many  other  gods,  and  of 
devils  and  magicians. 

However,  there  is  no  lack  of  similar  beliefs 
among  our  own  people.  Long  ago  I  knew  an  old 
market  gunner  of  eastern  Long  Island  who  shot 
ducks  and  bay-birds  for  a,  living.  There  was  a 
deserted  farmhouse  on  the  edge  of  the  marsh, 


188     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

handy  to  the  shooting-grounds,  which  he  would 
not  enter.  He  insisted  that  once  he  had  gone 
there  on  a  gray,  bitter  November  afternoon  to 
escape  the  rain  which  was  driving  in  sheets. 
He  lit  a  fire  in  the  kitchen  and  started  to  dry 
his  soaked  clothes.  Suddenly,  out  of  the  storm, 
somebody  fumbled  at  the  latch  of  the  door. 
It  opened  and  a  little  old  woman  in  gray  entered. 
She  did  not  look  at  him,  and  yet  a  chill  seemed 
to  fall  on  him.  Nevertheless  he  rose  and  fol 
lowed  her  as  she  went  out  into  the  hall.  She 
went  up  the  steep,  narrow  stairway.  He  went 
after  her.  She  went  up  the  still  steeper  little 
flight  that  went  to  the  garret.  But  when  he 
followed  there  was  no  one  there.  He  came  down 
stairs,  put  on  his  clothes,  took  up  his  heavy 
fowling-gun,  and  just  as  evening  fell  he  started 
for  the  mainland  along  a  road  which  at  one 
point  became  a  causeway.  When  he  reached 
the  causeway  the  light  was  dim;  but  a  figure 
walked  alongside  the  road  on  the  reeds,  not 
bending  the  tops;  and  it  was  a  man  with  his 
throat  cut  from  ear  to  ear. 

However,  to  tell  of  the  crooked  beliefs  of  the 
men  of  our  own  race,  who  dwell  beside  the 
great  waters  or  journey  across  the  world's  waste 
spaces,  is  aside  from  what  I  have  to  say  of  the 
wild  hunting  companions  whose  world  was  peo- 


WILD   HUNTING   COMPANIONS     189 

pled  by  ghosts  as  real  to  their  minds  as  the  men 
and  beasts  with  whom  they  were  brought  in 
touch  during  their  daily  lives. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PRIMEVAL  MAN;  AND  THE  HORSE,  THE 
LION,  AND  THE  ELEPHANT 

TO  say  that  progress  goes  on  and  has 
gone  on  at  unequal  speed  in  different 
continents,  so  far  as  human  society  is 
concerned,  is  so  self-evident  as  to  be  trite.  Yet, 
after  all,  we  hardly  visualize  even  this  fact  to 
ourselves;  and  we  laymen,  at  least,  often  either 
disregard  or  else  frankly  forget  the  further 
fact  that  this  statement  is  equally  true  as  re 
gards  the  prehistory  of  mankind  and  as  re 
gards  the  paleontological  history  of  the  great 
beasts  with  which  he  has  been  associated  on 
the  different  continents  during  the  last  two  or 
three  hundred  thousand  years.  In  history,  a 
given  century  may  on  one  continent  mean 
what  on  another  continent  was  meant  by  a 
century  that  came  a  thousand  years  before  or 
a  thousand  years  later.  In  prehistory  and 
paleontology  there  is  the  same  geographical  dif 
ference  as  regards  the  rapidity  of  development 
in  time. 

190 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  191 

The  Soudan  under  the  Mahdi  at  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  in  religious,  indus 
trial,  and  social  life,  in  fact  in  everything  except 
mere  time,  part  of  the  evil  Mohammedan  world 
of  the  seventh  century.  It  had  no  relation  to 
the  contemporary  body  politic  of  humanity  ex 
cept  that  of  being  a  plague-spot.  The  Tas- 
manians,  Bushmen,  and  Esquimaux  of  the 
eighteenth  century  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  Europeans  of  their  day.  Their  kin 
ship,  physical  and  cultural,  was  with  certain 
races  of  Palaeolithic  Europeans  and  Asiatics 
fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand  years  back. 

In  just  the  same  way  the  fierce  wild  life  of  parts 
of  Africa  to-day  has  nothing  in  common  with 
what  we  now  see  in  Europe  and  the  Americas. 
Yet  in  its  general  aspect,  and  in  many  of  its 
most  striking  details,  it  reproduces  the  life  that 
once  was,  in  Europe  and  in  both  the  Americas, 
in  what  paleontologists  call  the  Pleistocene  age. 
By  Pleistocene  is  meant  that  period  —  of  in 
calculable  length  as  we  speak  of  historic  time, 
but  a  mere  moment  if  we  speak  of  geologic 
time  —  which  witnessed  in  Europe  and  Asia 
the  slow  change  of  the  brute-like  and  but 
partly  human  predecessors  of  man  into  beings 
who  were  culturally  on  a  level  with  the  lower 
forms  of  the  savages  that  still  exist,  and  some 


192     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

of  whom  were  physically,  as  far  as  we  can  see, 
abreast  of  the  more  advanced  races  of  to-day. 

Surely,  this  phase  in  the  vast  epic  of  life 
development  on  this  planet  offers  a  fascinating 
study.  The  history  of  man  himself  is  by  far 
the  most  absorbing  of  all  histories,  and  it  can 
not  be  understood  without  some  knowledge  of 
his  prehistory.  Moreover,  the  history  of  the 
rest  of  the  animal  world  also  yields  a  drama  of 
intense  and  vivid  interest  to  all  scholars  gifted 
with  imagination.  The  two  histories  —  the  pre 
history  of  humanity  and  the  history  of  the  cul 
minating  phase  of  non-human  mammalian  life — 
were  interwoven  during  the  dim  ages  when  man 
was  slowly  groping  upward  from  the  bestial  to 
the  half-divine. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  throughout  one  year 
of  my  life  to  roam,  rifle  in  hand,  over  the  empty, 
sunlit  African  wastes,  and  at  night  to  camp  by 
palm  and  thorn-tree  on  the  banks  of  the  African 
rivers.  Day  after  day  I  watched  the  thronging 
herds  of  wild  creatures  and  the  sly,  furtive 
human  life  of  the  wilderness.  Often  and  often, 
as  I  so  watched,  my  thoughts  went  back  through 
measureless  time  to  the  ages  when  the  western 
lands,  where  my  people  now  dwell,  and  the 
northern  lands  of  the  eastern  world,  where  their 
remote  forefathers  once  dwelt,  were  filled  with 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  193 

just  such  a  wild  life.  In  those  days  these  far- 
back  ancestors  of  ours  led  the  same  lives  of 
suspicion  and  vigilant  cunning  among  the  beasts 
of  the  forest  and  plain  that  are  now  led  by  the 
wildest  African  savages.  In  that  immemorial 
past  the  beasts  conditioned  the  lives  of  men, 
as  they  conditioned  the  lives  of  one  another;  for 
the  chief  factors  in  man's  existence  were  then 
the  living  things  upon  which  he  preyed  and 
the  fearsome  creatures  which  sometimes  made 
prey  of  him.  Ages  were  to  pass  before  his  mas 
tery  grew  to  such  a  point  that  the  fanged  things 
he  once  had  feared,  and  the  hoofed  things  suc 
cess  in  the  chase  of  which  had  once  meant  to 
him  life  or  death,  became  negligible  factors  in 
his  existence. 

Some  of  the  naked  or  half  skin-clad  savages 
whom  I  met  and  with  whom  I  hunted  were  still 
leading  precisely  the  life  of  these  ages-dead  fore 
bears  of  ours.  More  than  once  I  spent  days  in 
heavy  forests  at  the  foot  of  equatorial  moun 
tains  in  company  with  small  parties  of  'Ndorobo 
hunters.  They  were  men  of  the  deep  woods, 
as  stealthy  and  wary  as  any  of  the  woodland 
creatures.  In  each  case  they  knew  and  trusted 
my  companion  -  -  who  was  in  one  instance  a 
settler,  a  famous  lion  hunter,  and  in  the  other 
a  noted  professional  elephant  hunter.  Yet 


194     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

even  so  their  trust  did  not  extend  to  letting  a 
stranger  like  himself  see  their  women  and  chil 
dren,  who  had  retreated  into  some  forest  fast 
ness  from  which  we  were  kept  aloof.  The  men 
wore  each  a  small  fur  cape  over  the  shoulders. 
Otherwise  they  were  absolutely  naked.  Each 
carried  a  pouch,  and  a  spear.  The  spear  head 
was  of  iron,  obtained  from  some  of  the  settled 
tribes.  Except  this  iron  spear  head,  not  one  of 
their  few  belongings  differed  from  what  it 
doubtless  was  long  prior  to  the  age  of  metals. 
They  carried  bows,  strung  with  zebra  gut,  and 
arrows  of  which  the  wooden  tips  were  poisoned. 
In  one  place  Kermit  found  where  a  party  of 
them  had  dwelt  in  a  cave,  evidently  for  many 
weeks;  there  were  bones  and  scraps  of  skin 
without  and  within;  and  inside  were  beds  of 
grass,  and  fire-sticks,  and  a  walled-off  enclosure 
of  branches  in  which  their  dogs  had  been  penned. 
Elsewhere  we  came  on  one  or  two  camping- 
places  with  rude  brush  shelters.  Each  little 
party  consisted  of  a  family,  or  perhaps  tem 
porarily  of  two  or  three  families.  They  did  not 
cultivate  the  earth;  they  owned  a  few  dogs; 
and  they  lived  on  honey  and  game.  They 
killed  monkeys  and  hyraxes,  occasionally  forest 
hog  and  bongo  —  a  beautifully  striped  forest 
antelope  as  big  as  a  Jersey  cow  —  and  now  and 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  195 

then  elephant,  rhino,  and  buffalo,  and,  on  the 
open  plains  at  the  edge  of  the  forest,  zebra. 
The  zebra  was  a  favorite  food;  but  they  could 
only  get  at  it  when  it  left  the  open  plains  and 
came  among  the  bushes  or  to  drink  at  the  river. 
Two  of  these  wild  hunters  showed  me  the  bones 
of  an  elephant  they  had  killed  in  a  pit  a  long 
time  previously;  and  the  head  man  of  those  we 
had  with  us  on  another  trip  bore  the  scars  of 
frightful  wounds  inflicted  by  an  angered  buffalo. 
Hyenas  at  times  haunted  the  neighborhood, 
and  after  nightfall  might  attempt  to  carry  off 
a  child  or  even  a  sleeping  man.  Very  rarely 
the  hunters  killed  a  leopard,  and  sometimes  a 
leopard  pounced  on  one  of  them.  The  lion 
they  feared  greatly,  but  it  did  not  enter  the 
woods,  and  they  were  in  danger  from  it  only 
if  they  ventured  on  the  plain.  The  head  man 
above  mentioned  told  us  that  once,  when  des 
perate  with  hunger,  his  little  tribe,  or  family 
group,  had  found  a  buffalo  killed  by  a  lion,  and 
had  attacked  and  slain  the  lion,  and  then  feasted 
on  both  it  and  the  buffalo.  But  on  another  oc 
casion  a  lion  had  turned  the  tables  and  killed 
two  of  their  number.  The  father  of  one  of  my 
guides  had  been  killed  by  baboons;  he  had  at 
tacked  a  young  one  with  a  club,  and  the  old 
males  tore  him  to  pieces  with  their  huge  dog 


196     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

teeth.  Death  to  the  head  of  a  family  in  en 
counter  with  an  elephant  or  rhino  might  mean 
literal  starvation  to  the  weaker  members.  They 
were  able  to  exist  at  all  only  because  they  had 
developed  their  senses  and  powers  to  a  degree 
that  placed  them  level  with  the  creatures  they 
dreaded  or  preyed  upon.  They  climbed  the 
huge  trees  almost  as  well  as  the  big  black-and- 
white  monkey.  I  had  with  me  gun-bearers 
from  the  hunting  tribes  of  the  plains,  men  ac 
customed  to  the  chase,  but  brought  up  in  vil 
lages  where  there  was  tillage  and  where  goats 
and  cattle  were  raised.  These  gun-bearers  of 
mine  were  good  trackers  and  at  home  in  the 
ordinary  wilderness.  But  compared  to  these 
true  wild  men  of  the  forest  they  might  almost 
as  well  have  been  town-bred.  The  'Ndorobo 
trackers  would  take  me  straight  to  some  partic 
ular  tree  or  spot  of  ground,  through  miles  of 
dense,  steaming  woodland  every  rood  of  which 
looked  like  every  other,  returning  with  unerring 
precision  to  a  goal  which  my  gun-bearers  would 
have  been  as  helpless  to  find  again  as  I  was 
myself;  and  they  interpreted  trails  and  signs 
and  footprint-scrapes  which  we  either  hardly 
saw  or  else  misread. 

Doubtless    the    ancestors,    or    some    of    the 
ancestors,  of  these  men  had  lived  in  the  land, 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  197 

just  as  they  themselves  now  did,  for  untold 
generations  before  the  soil-tillers  and  cattle- 
owners  came  into  it.  They  had  shrunk  from 
the  advent  of  the  latter,  and  as  a  rule  were 
found  only  in  isolated  tracts  which  were  use 
less  for  tillage  or  pasturage,  the  dense  forest 
forming  their  habitual  dwelling-place  and  re 
treat  of  safety.  From  the  best  hunting-grounds, 
those  where  the  great  game  teemed,  they  had 
been  driven;  yet  these  hunting-grounds  were 
often  untenanted  by  human  beings  for  much 
of  the  year,  being  visited  only  at  certain  seasons 
by  the  cattle-owning  nomads. 

Often  these  hunting-grounds  offered  sights 
of  wonder  and  enchantment.  Day  after  day  I 
rode  across  them  without  seeing,  from  dawn 
to  sundown,  a  human  being  save  the  faithful 
black  followers,  hawk-eyed  and  steel-thewed, 
who  trudged  behind  me.  Sometimes  the  plains 
were  seas  of  wind-rippled  grass.  Sometimes 
they  were  dotted  with  clumps  of  low  thorn- 
trees  or  broken  by  barren,  boldly  outlined  hills. 
Our  camp  might  be  pitched  by  a  muddy  pool, 
with  only  stunted  thorns  near  by;  or  on  the 
edge  of  a  shrunken  river,  under  the  dense  shade 
of  some  great,  brilliantly  green  fig-tree;  or  in 
a  grove  of  huge,  flat-topped  acacias  with  yellow 
trunks  and  foliage  like  the  most  delicate  lace; 


198     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

or  where  the  long  fronds  of  palins  moved  with 
a  ceaseless,  dry  rustle  in  the  evening  breeze. 
At  the  drinking-holes,  in  pond  or  river,  as  the 
afternoon  waned,  or  occasionally  after  night 
fall  when  the  moon  was  bright,  I  sometimes 
lay  to  see  the  game  filing  down  to  drink. 

On  these  rides,  I  continually  passed  through, 
and  while  lying  in  ambush  I  often  saw,  a  wealth 
of  wild  life,  in  numbers  and  variety  such  as  the 
western  world,  and  the  cold-temperate  regions 
of  the  Old  World,  have  not  seen  for  many,  many 
thousands  of  years.  How  many  kinds  of  beasts 
there  were!  Giraffes  stared  at  us  over  the  tops 
of  the  stunted  thorn -trees.  In  the  dawn  we 
saw  hyenas  shambling  homeward  after  their 
night's  prowl.  Wart-hogs  as  hideous  as  night 
mares  ploughed  along  with  their  fore  knees  on 
the  ground  as  they  rooted  it  up.  Sleek  oryx 
with  horns  like  rapiers  galloped  off  with  even, 
gliding  gait.  Shaggy  wildebeests  curvetted 
and  plunged  with  a  ferocity  both  ludicrous 
and  sinister;  elands  as  heavy  as  prize  cattle 
trotted  away  with  shaking  dewlaps.  Ungainly 
hartebeests,  and  topi  whose  skins  had  the 
sheen  of  satin,  ran  with  smooth  speed.  The 
lyre-horned  waterbucks  had  the  stately  port 
of  wapiti  bulls.  Rhinoceros,  foolish,  mighty, 
and  uncouth,  stood  half  asleep  in  the  bright 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  199 

sunlight.  Buffalo  sought  the  shade  of  the 
thorn-trees,  their  bodies  black  and  their  great 
horn-bosses  glinting  white.  Hippos  snorted 
and  gambolled  in  the  water.  Dominant  always, 
wherever  we  saw  them,  were  the  lion  and  the 
elephant;  and  the  favorite  prey  of  the  lion 
was  the  zebra,  the  striped  wild  horse  of  the 
African  wastes. 

Of  course,  these  many  different  creatures 
were  not  all  to  be  seen  at  any  one  time  or  in  any 
one  place.  But  again  and  again  there  were  so 
many  of  them  that  we  felt  as  if  we  were  passing 
through  a  gigantic  zoological  garden.  Often 
the  line  of  our  burden-bearing  carriers  had  to 
be  shifted  from  its  point  of  march,  to  avoid  a 
rhinoceros  which  stared  at  us  with  dull  and 
truculent  curiosity;  while  the  zebra  herds  filed 
off  with  barking  cries  across  the  sunlit  plain, 
and  delicate  gazelles,  dainty  as  wood-sprites, 
fled  like  shadows,  and  hartebeests  gazed  to 
ward  us  with  long,  homely  faces;  or  we  stopped 
to  watch  a  herd  of  elephants,  cows  and  calves, 
browsing  among  the  thorns,  their  curling  trunks 
raised  now  and  then  to  test  the  wind,  or  per 
haps  one  big  ear  lifted  and  then  slapped  back 
against  the  body. 

One  day  at  noon,  in  the  Sotik  country  of 
East  Africa,  we  stopped  to  skin  a  hyena  which 


200     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

I  had  shot  for  the  Smithsonian.  As  we  skinned 
it  the  game  of  the  neighborhood  gathered  to 
look  on.  The  spectators  included  wildebeest, 
hartebeest,  gazelle,  topi,  a  zebra,  and  a  rhinoc 
eros  —  the  hook-lipped  kind.  Late  that  after 
noon  I  shot  a  lioness;  the  successive  reports  of 
the  rifle  and  the  grunting  roars  of  the  lioness, 
put  to  flight  a  mixed  herd  of  zebra  and  harte 
beest  which  had  hitherto  been  unconcernedly 
grazing  not  far  off  to  one  side  of  the  scene  of 
action. 

On  another  day  as  I  journeyed  along  the 
valley  of  the  Guaso  Nyero  —  first  at  the  head 
of  the  safari,  as  it  travelled  through  the  green 
forest  of  the  river-bed,  and  then  with  only  my 
gun-bearers,  through  the  hot,  waterless,  sun- 
scorched  country  back  from  the  river  -  -  I  saw 
rhino,  giraffe,  buffalo,  eland,  oryx,  waterbuck, 
impalla,  big  gazelle,  and  gerenuk  or  giraffe- 
gazelle.  After  camping,  toward  evening,  I 
walked  up-stream,  away  from  the  tents,  until 
I  came  to  a  spot  where  the  river  ran  through  a 
wild,  rugged  ravine.  On  the  hither  side  I 
found  the  carcass  -  -  little  more  than  the  skele 
ton  —  of  a  zebra  which  had  been  killed  by  a 
couple  of  lions  as  it  came  to  drink  the  previous 
night.  It  was  evidently  a  favorite  drinking- 
place,  for  broad  game  trails  led  down  to  the 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  201 

river  at  this  point  from  both  banks.  As  I  sat 
and  watched,  a  herd  of  zebra  approached 
cautiously  from  the  opposite  side.  There  were 
in  it  representatives  of  two  species  of  these 
gaudily  marked  wild  horses  or  wild  asses,  the 
common  zebra  and  the  much,  bigger  northern 
zebra  with  longer  ears  and  more  numerous 
and  narrower  stripes.  The  herd  advanced, 
avoiding  cover  as  much  as  possible,  continually 
halting,  once  wheeling  and  galloping  back,  ever 
seeking  with  eye  and  nostril  some  token  of  the 
presence  of  their  maned  and  tawny  foe.  At 
last  the  leader  walked  down  through  a  break 
in  the  bank  to  the  river.  The  others  crowded 
close  behind,  jostling  one  another  as  they  sank 
their  muzzles  in  the  water.  For  a  moment 
fear  left  them,  and  they  satisfied  their  thirst, 
and  those  that  were  through  first  then  stood 
while  the  rearmost  drank  greedily.  But  as 
soon  as  one  of  them  began  to  move  back  to 
the  shore  the  others  became  uneasy  and  fol 
lowed,  and  the  whole  herd  broke  into  a  gallop 
and  tore  off  for  a  couple  of  hundred  yards. 
Looking  at  them  it  was  easy  enough  to  bring 
before  one's  eyes  the  tragedy  of  the  preceding 
night;  the  herd  nearing  the  water,  wary,  but  not 
wary  enough,  the  panic  flight  as  the  lion  dashed 
among  them,  the  struggling  and  the  neighing 


202     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

screams  of  the  victim  before  the  great  teeth  found 
the  life  they  sought.  The  herd  I  watched  was 
not  assailed;  it  cantered  off;  oryx  and  water- 
buck  came  down  to  drink  and  also  cantered  off. 
The  carcass  of  the  murdered  zebra,  little  but 
bones  and  shreds  of  red  sinew  and  scraps  of  skin, 
lay  not  far  from  me.  Footprints  showed  where 
the  lions  had  drunk  after  eating.  As  the  long 
afternoon  lights  waned,  a  hyena,  abroad  earlier 
than  usual,  began  to  call  somewhere  in  the  dis 
tance.  The  lonely  gorge  was  rather  an  eerie  place 
as  darkness  fell,  and  I  strode  toward  camp,  alone, 
keeping  a  sharp  lookout  round  about;  and  as  I 
walked  and  watched  in  a  present  that  might  be 
dangerous,  my  thoughts  went  back  through  the 
immeasurable  ages  to  a  past  that  was  always 
dangerous ;  to  the  days  when  our  hairy  and  low 
browed  forefathers,  under  northern  skies,  fingered 
their  stone-headed  axes  as  they  lay  among  the 
rocks  in  just  such  a  ravine  as  that  I  had  quitted, 
and  gazed  with  mingled  greed  and  terror  as  the 
cave-lion  struck  down  his  prey  and  scattered  the 
herds  of  wild  horses  for  whose  flesh  they  them 
selves  hungered. 

Once  in  East  Africa  I  stalked  a  hook-lipped 
rhino,  a  big  bull  with  good  horns.  I  wished  its 
skin  and  skeleton  for  the  Smithsonian.  When  a 
hundred  and  fifty  yards  off  I  stopped  for  a  mo- 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  203 

ment  by  an  ant-hill  and  looked  around  over  the 
wide  plain.  There  were  in  sight  a  couple  of  gi 
raffes,  some  solitary  old  wildebeest  bulls,  show 
ing  black  against  the  bleached  yellow  grass,  and 
herds  of  hartebeest,  topi,  big  and  little  gazelle, 
and  zebra.  On  another  occasion,  when  with  Ker- 
mit,  we  inspected  three  rhinos  at  close  quarters, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  none  of  them  would 
make  good  specimens,  and  backed  off  cautiously 
a  couple  of  hundred  yards  to  a  big  ant-hill. 
From  this  point,  there  were  in  sight  all  the 
kinds  of  game  mentioned  above  except  the 
giraffe  and  little  gazelle,  and  in  addition  there 
were  ostrich  and  wart-hog. 

One  night  when  we  were  camped  on  the 
western  bank  of  the  upper  White  Nile  we  heard 
a  mighty  chorus.  Lions  roared  and  elephants 
trumpeted,  and  in  the  papyrus  beds,  beneath 
the  low  bluff  on  which  our  tents  stood,  hip 
popotamus  bellowed  and  blew  like  the  exhaust- 
pipes  of  huge  steam-engines.  Next  day  I 
hunted  the  giant  square-mouth  rhinoceros,  kill 
ing  a  cow  and  a  bull,  and  taking  their  skins 
and  the  skeleton  of  one  for  the  Smithsonian. 
On  the  walk  out,  and  but  a  mile  or  two  from 
camp,  we  had  passed  a  small  herd  of  elephants; 
and  on  our  return  we  found  them  in  the  same 
place,  still  resting,  with  many  white  cow-herons 


204      A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

perched  on  their  backs.  From  where  I  stood 
looking  at  them  hartebeest,  kob,  waterbuck,  and 
oribi  were  also  all  in  sight. 

I  could  mention  day  after  day  such  as  these, 
when  we  saw  myriads  of  game,  often  of  many 
kinds.  One  afternoon  of  heat  and  sunlight  on 
the  parched  Kapiti  plains,  teeming  with  wild 
life,  I  followed  a  lion,  on  horseback.  During 
the  gallop  he  ran  for  several  minutes  almost  in 
the  middle  of  a  mixed  herd  of  hartebeest  and 
zebra.  When  he  came  to  bay,  I  walked  in  on 
him.  In  the  background  the  barren  hills, 
"like  giants  at  a  hunting  lay."  Bands  of  harte- 
beests  and  of  showy  zebras,  joined  by  grotesquely 
capering  wildebeests  and  by  lovely,  long-horned 
gazelles,  stood  round  in  a  wide,  irregular  ring, 
to  see  their  two  foes  fight  to  the  death.  Another 
day,  at  burning  noon,  in  a  waste  of  sparsely 
scattered,  withered  thorn-trees,  west  of  Redjaf 
on  the  upper  Nile,  I  killed  a  magnificent  giant 
eland  bull;  and  during  the  hunt  I  saw  elephant, 
giraffe,  buffalo,  straw-colored  Nile  hartebeest, 
and  roan  antelope,  as  big  as  horses,  with  shining 
coats  which  melted  in  ghostly  fashion  into  the 
shimmering  heat  haze  of  the  dry  landscape. 

In  short,  for  months  my  companions  and  I 
travelled  and  hunted  in  the  Pleistocene.  Man 
and  beasts  alike  were  of  types  our  own  world 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  205 

knew  only  in  an  incalculably  remote  past.  My 
gun-bearers  were  really  men  such  as  those  of 
later  Palaeolithic  times.  Now  and  then  I  spent 
days  with  hunters  whose  lives  were  led  under  con 
ditions  that  the  people  of  my  race  had  not  faced 
for  ages;  probably  not  since  before,  certainly 
not  since  immediately  after,  the  close  of  the 
last  glacial  epoch.  The  number  and  variety 
of  the  great  game,  the  terror  inspired  by  some 
of  the  beasts  of  prey,  the  bulk  and  majesty  of 
some  of  the  beasts  of  the  chase,  were  such  as 
are  unknown  in  the  rest  of  the  modern  world; 
and  nothing  like  them  has  been  seen  in  the 
western  and  northern  world  since  the  Pleisto 
cene. 

Many  of  these  great  and  beautiful  beasts 
were  of  kinds  which  either  have  developed  in 
Africa  itself,  and  have  never  wandered  to  the 
other  continents,  or  else  had  disappeared  from 
these  other  continents  before  man  appeared 
upon  the  earth.  But  three  of  the  most  char 
acteristic  of  these  beasts,  the  lion,  the  ele 
phant,  and  the  horse,  were  spread  over  almost 
the  whole  of  this  planet  at  the  time  when  man 
as  man  had  fairly  begun  his  hunting.  These 
three  beasts  then  abounded  in  Europe  and  in 
Asia,  in  North  America,  and  in  South  America. 
In  each  of  these  continents  they  were  among 


206     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

the  dominant  types  of  a  fauna  as  rich,  varied, 
and  impressive  as  only  that  of  Africa  is  to-day. 
When  I  speak  of  "elephant,"  "lion,"  and 
"horse"  I  am  speaking  of  the  beasts  themselves, 
not  their  names  in  our  vernacular.  As  regards 
two  of  these  three  animals,  the  horse  and  the 
big  horse-killing  cat,  we  have  no  common  names 
to  include  the  various  species;  whereas  in  the 
remaining  case  we  have  such  a  common  name 
to  include  the  two  widely  separate  existing 
species,  although  we  use  different  names  to  des 
ignate  two  well-known  fossil  species.  We  speak 
of  both  the  Indian  and  the  African  probos 
cidians  as  elephants,  although  we  style  "mam 
moth"  the  recently  extinct  hairy  elephant  of 
the  north,  which  was  more  closely  related  to  the 
Asiatic  elephant  than  the  latter  is  to  its  African 
cousin,  and  although  we  use  the  word  "masto 
don"  to  denote  a  more  primitive  type  of  elephant 
also  recently  extinct  in  America.  We  have  no 
such  common  term  either  for  the  various  big 
cats  or  for  the  various  horses.  Yet  the  African 
and  Asiatic  elephants  are  far  more  widely  sep 
arated  from  one  another  than  the  lion  is  from 
the  tiger,  or  even  from  the  jaguar.  They  are 
far  more  widely  separated  than  horses,  asses, 
and  zebras  are  from  one  another.  As  regards 
both  the  horses  and  the  big  cats  which  have 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  207 

always  preyed  so  largely  on  horses,  the  differ 
ences  are  almost  exclusively  in  color  and  in 
features  of  purely  external  anatomy.  From  the 
skull  and  skeleton  it  is  not  possible  to  deter 
mine  with  certainty  the  lion  from  the  tiger, 
and  both  come  very  close  to  the  big  spotted 
cats;  while  the  skulls  of  the  horse,  the  ass, 
and  the  common  zebra  are  with  difficulty  to  be 
discriminated  except  by  size  —  although  the 
skull  of  the  big  northernmost  African  zebra  is 
totally  distinct. 

In  consequence,  when  we  speak  of  extinct 
horses  it  is  often  impossible  to  guarantee  that 
they  were  not  asses  or  zebras;  and  when  we 
speak  of  the  great  extinct  cats  of  Europe  and 
North  America  as  lions,  we  know  that  it  is 
possible  that  in  life  they  may  have  looked  more 
like  tigers.  Therefore  it  must  be  understood 
that  I  use  the  words  horse  and  lion  as  terms  of 
convenience  and  in  a  broad  sense  so  as  to  avoid 
circumlocution.  I  use  them  in  exactly  the  way 
in  which  "elephant"  is  always  used  to  include 
the  two  totally  distinct  species  now  living  in 
India  and  Africa.  By  "lion"  I  mean  any  one 
of  the  big  extinct  cats,  true  cats,  which  in  their 
cranial  and  skeletal  characters  are  almost  or 
quite  identical  with  living  lions  and  tigers  and 
closely  related  to  living  jaguars.  By  "horse" 


208     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

I  mean  any  existing  species  of  horse,  ass,  or 
zebra,  and  any  one  of  the  numerous  similar  ex 
tinct  species  which  may  have  belonged  to  any 
one  of  these  three  types,  or  have  been  inter 
mediate  between  any  two  of  them,  or  perhaps 
have  been  somewhat  different  from  all  of  them. 
As  thus  used,  the  words  horse,  lion,  and  elephant 
are  scientifically  of  nearly  equivalent  value. 

The  only  region  in  which  these  three  animals 
were  not  found  during  Pleistocene  times  was 
Australia,  which  was  given  over  wholly  to  a 
relatively  insignificant  and  undeveloped  fauna 
of  marsupials  and  into  which  it  is  probable 
that  man  did  not  intrude  until  at  a  late  period. 
Everywhere  else,  from  Patagonia  to  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  including  regions  now  faunistically 
as  utterly  unlike  as  Peru,  California,  Alaska, 
Siberia,  Asia  Minor,  France,  and  Algiers,  they 
abounded,  many  different  and  peculiar  species 
being  found.  The  Pleistocene  gradually  be 
came  part  of  the  Age  of  Man;  but  at  first  it 
was  emphatically  the  Age  of  the  Horse,  the 
Lion,  and  the  Elephant,  and  the  two  ages  over 
lapped  for  a  very  long  period.  The  lion  was 
primitive  man's  most  deadly  foe,  as  to  this 
day  is  the  case  in  parts  of  Africa.  He  feared 
the  lion,  and  avoided  him,  and  warred  upon 
him,  until  gradually  he  got  a  little  the  upper 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  209 

hand  of  him.  The  elephant  greatly  impressed 
the  imagination  of  this  primitive  man,  and  it 
still  greatly  impresses  it;  as  will  be  seen  by  any 
one  who  studies  the  carvings  and  pictures  of 
our  ancestors  of  the  glacial  and  postglacial  ep 
ochs,  or  who  at  the  present  day  listens  to  the 
talk  of  his  black  gun-bearers  round  an  African 
camp-fire.  The  horse  was  and  is  a  quarry  as 
eagerly  followed  by  primitive  man  as  by  the 
lion  himself.  Ages  elapsed  before  the  horse, 
and  finally  even  "my  lord  the  elephant"  were 
tamed  by  man,  as  man  developed  something 
that  could  properly  be  called  a  culture.  The 
savages  who,  when  England  was  merely  a  pen 
insula  of  continental  Europe,  dwelt  by  the  banks 
of  the  mighty  rivers  which  have  since  shrunk 
into  the  present  Rhine  and  Seine,  looked  on  the 
mammoth  and  the  coarse-headed  wild  horse  of 
their  day  as  furnishing  the  flesh  their  stomachs 
craved,  precisely  as  the  savages  of  the  Nile  and 
the  Zambesi  now  look  on  the  African  elephant 
and  the  zebra. 

This  Age  of  Primitive  Man,  this  Age  of  the 
Horse,  the  Lion,  and  the  Elephant,  like  all 
other  historical  or  geological  "ages,"  lasted 
longer  in  some  places  than  in  others,  and,  in 
stead  of  having  sharply  defined  limits,  merged 
gradually  into  the  preceding  and  succeeding 


210     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

ages.  Moreover  —  in  exact  analogy  with  other 
divisions  of  time,  all  of  which,  however  useful, 
are  essentially  artificial  —  we  must  constantly 
remember  that  the  perspective  changes  utterly 
with  the  point  of  view.  All  paleontological  terms 
of  time  are  necessarily  terms  chiefly  of  con 
venience,  which  have  and  express  a  real  in 
trinsic  value,  but  which  cannot  be  sharply 
defined.  Miocene,  Pliocene,  Pleistocene,  and 
Recent  are  such  terms.  They  are  arbitrarily 
chosen  bits  of  terminology  to  express  successive 
stages  of  the  world's  growth,  and  therefore 
successive  and  varying  faunas.  They  are  not 
equivalent  in  time  to  one  another;  the  more 
remote  the  age  from  our  own  the  greater  is  the 
length  of  time  we  include  therein.  "Recent" 
denotes  a  short  period  of  time  compared  to 
"Pleistocene,"  and  "Pleistocene"  a  short  period 
compared  to  "Pliocene."  If  there  are  on  this 
earth  intelligent  beings  at  a  time  in  the  future 
as  remote  from  our  day  as  our  day  is  from  the 
Pliocene,  they  will  certainly  consider  "Recent" 
and  "Pleistocene"  as  one  short  period.  All  the 
beast  faunas  and  all  the  human  cultures  from 
the  eras  of  the  chinless  Heidelberg  and  Pilt- 
down  men  to  our  own  time  will  seem  in  that 
remote  perspective  practically  contemporane 
ous.  Similarly,  when  we  try  to  grasp  life  as 


PRIMEVAL  MAN 

lived  even  in  such,  geologically,  near-by  time  as 
any  portion  of  the  Pleistocene,  we  cannot  be 
sure  of  the  exact  time-parallelism  of  closely  re 
lated  faunas  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  nor 
can  we,  in  many  cases,  tell  whether  certain 
species  were  really  contemporaneous  or  whether 
they  were  successive.  Of  the  general  paleon- 
tological  facts,  of  the  general  aspects  of  the 
various  faunas  in  various  parts  of  the  world, 
during  some  roughly  indicated  period  of  geo 
logic  time,  we  may  be  reasonably  sure.  But 
when  we  speak  with  more  minuteness,  we  speak 
doubtfully,  and  at  any  moment  new  discoveries 
may  unsettle  theories  by  upsetting  what  we 
have  supposed  to  be  facts. 

In  considering  what  is  in  this  chapter  set  forth 
these  conditions  must  be  kept  in  mind.  When 
I  speak  of  what  I  have  myself  seen  or  of  the 
tools,  carvings,  and  skeletons  dug  from  the 
ground  by  competent  observers,  I  speak  of  facts ; 
but  as  yet  the  explanations  of  these  facts  must 
be  accepted  only  as  hypotheses,  at  least  in  part. 
Just  as  the  elephant,  wild  horse,  and  lion  exist 
in  Africa  to-day,  and  have  disappeared  from 
Europe  and  the  two  Americas  thousands  or  tens 
of  thousands  of  years  ago,  so  it  may  well  be 
that  they  had  died  out  in  North  America  ages 
before  they  had  disappeared  from  the  other  end 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

of  the  western  hemisphere.  Again,  in  North 
America,  it  is  as  yet  quite  impossible  to  be  sure 
as  to  the  exact  succession,  or  contemporaneity 
of  all  of  the  many  extinct  species  of  horse  and 
elephant.  It  is  with  our  present  knowledge 
equally  impossible  to  be  sure  of  the  exact  time 
relations  between  any  given  North  American 
fauna  and  the  Eurasiatic  fauna  most  closely  re 
sembling  it.  Moreover,  as  yet  we  have  only  the 
vaguest  idea  of  the  duration  of  even  modern 
geologic  time;  good  observers  vary  as  to  whether 
a  given  period  covers  hundreds  of  thousands  or 
only  tens  of  thousands  of  years. 

This  does  not  impair  the  value  of  the  general 
picture  which  we  can  make  in  our  minds.  It 
is  not  essentially  different  from  what  is  the 
case  in  history.  If  we  speak  of  the  Grseco- 
Roman  world  from  the  days  of  Aristides  to 
those  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  we  outline  a  his 
torical  period  which  has  a  real  unity,  and  of 
which  all  the  parts  are  bound  together  by  real 
ties  and  real  resemblances.  Nevertheless,  there 
were  sharp  differences  in  the  successive  cultures 
of  this  period;  even  the  two  centuries  which 
intervened,  say,  between  Miltiades  and  Deme 
trius  Poliorketes,  or  between  Marius  and  Trajan, 
showed  such  differences.  Dealing  roughly  with 
the  period  as  a  whole,  it  would  not  be  necessary 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  213 

to  try  to  draw  all  the  distinctions  and  make 
all  the  qualifications  that  would  be  essential 
to  minutely  accurate  treatment;  such  treat 
ment  would  merely  mar  the  outlines  of  a  gen 
eral  sketch.  The  same  thing  is,  of  course,  true 
of  an  outline  sketch  of  what  our  present  knowl 
edge  shows  of  man's  most  wide-spread  beast 
associates,  when  he  had  begun,  in  forms  not 
very  different  from  those  of  the  lower  savages 
to-day,  to  spread  over  the  world's  surface. 

Therefore  it  is  necessary  to  remember  that 
in  dealing  even  with  such  a  recent  chapter  of 
paleontological  discovery  as  that  concerned 
with  early  man  and  the  great  four-footed  crea 
tures  that  were  his  contemporaries,  our  general 
picture  can  rarely  pretend  to  more  than  general 
accuracy.  It  is  only  in  prehistoric  and  proto- 
historic  Europe  that  the  early  career  of  "homo 
sapiens"  and  his  immediate  predecessors  has 
been  worked  out  in  sufficient  detail  to  give 
even  the  roughest  idea  of  its  successive  stages, 
and  of  the  varying  groups  of  great  beasts  with 
which  at  the  different  stages  man  was  associated. 
This  is  because  the  record  has  been  better  pre 
served,  and  more  closely  studied  in  Europe  than 
elsewhere;  for  it  seems  fairly  certain  that  it  is 
in  Eurasia,  in  the  palsearctic  realm,  that  there 
took  place  the  development  of  the  more  or  less 


214     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

ape-like  predecessors  of  man  and  then  of  man 
himself.  It  is  in  Eurasia  that  all  of  the  remains 
of  man's  immediate  predecessors  have  been 
found  —  from  the  Javan  pithecanthropus  which 
can  only  doubtfully  be  called  human,  to  the 
Piltdown  and  Heidelberg  men,  who  were  un 
doubtedly  human,  but  who  were  so  much  closer 
than  any  existing  savage  to  the  beasts  that 
(unless  our  present  imperfect  knowledge  proves 
erroneous)  they  can  hardly  be  deemed  specif 
ically  identical  with  modern  homo  sapiens. 
Even  the  more  modern  Neanderthal  men  are 
probably  not  ancestral  to  our  own  stock.  It  is 
in  Europe,  following  on  these  predecessors  of 
existing  man,  that  we  find  the  skeletons,  the 
weapons  and  tools,  and  the  carvings  of  existing 
man  in  his  earliest  stages;  and  mingled  with 
his  remains  those  of  the  strange  and  mighty 
beasts  which  dwelt  beside  him  in  the  land. 
Probably  these  European  forefathers  of  exist 
ing  man  came  from  a  stock  which  had  previously 
gone  through  its  early  human  and  prehuman 
stages  in  Asia.  But  we  only  know  what  hap 
pened  in  Europe.  There  was  a  slow,  halting, 
and  interrupted  but  on  the  whole  steady  de 
velopment  in  physical  type  —  sometimes  the 
type  itself  gradually  changing,  while  sometimes 
it  was  displaced  by  a  wholly  different  type 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  215 

of  wholly  different  blood.  Roughly  parallel 
with  this  was  a  corresponding  development  in 
cultural  type.  Probably  from  the  earliest  times, 
and  certainly  in  late  times,  development  or 
change  in  physical  type  was  often  wholly  un 
related  to  development  or  change  in  culture. 
Sometimes  the  cultural  change  was  an  autoch 
thonous  development.  Sometimes  it  was  due 
to  a  more  or  less  complete  change  in  blood, 
owing  to  the  immigration  of  a  strong  alien  type 
of  humanity.  Sometimes  it  was  due  to  the 
adoption  of  an  alien  culture. 

Many  good  observers  nowadays,  judging 
from  the  facts  at  present  accessible,  are  in 
clined  to  think  that  the  American  Indian  stocks 
were  the  first  human  stocks  that  peopled  the 
western  hemisphere,  that  they  are  by  blood 
nearest  of  kin  to  certain  race-elements  still 
existing  in  northeastern  Asia  —  representing 
the  only  inhabitants  of  northeastern  Asia  when 
man  first  penetrated  from  there  to  north 
western  America  —  and  that  more  remotely 
they  may  be  kin  to  certain  late  Palaeolithic  men 
of  Europe.  But  much  of  the  American  Indian 
culture  was  essentially  a  Neolithic  culture, 
seemingly  from  the  beginning.  In  places  - 
Peru,  Maya-land,  the  Mexican  plateau --it  at 
times  developed  into  a  civilization  equally 


216     A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

extraordinary  for  its  achievements  and  for  its 
shortcomings  and  evanescence;  but  it  never 
developed  a  metal  epoch  corresponding  to,  say, 
the  bronze  age  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  al 
though  the  small  camel,  the  llama,  was  tamed 
in  South  America,  in  North  America,  the  ox, 
sheep,  white  goat,  and  reindeer  were  never  made 
servants  of  man,  as  befell  so  many  correspond 
ing  beasts  of  Eurasia. 

In  this  last  respect  the  American  Indians 
stayed  almost  on  the  level  of  the  African  tribes, 
whose  native  civilization  was  otherwise  far  less 
advanced.  The  African  buffalo  is  as  readily 
tamed  as  its  Asiatic  brother;  the  zebra  was  as 
susceptible  of  taming  as  the  early  wild  horse 
and  ass;  the  eland  is  probably  of  all  big  rumi 
nants  the  one  that  most  readily  lends  itself  to 
domestication.  But  none  of  them  was  tamed 
until  tribes  owning  animals  which  had  been 
tamed  for  ages  appeared  in  Africa;  and  then 
the  already-tamed  animals  were  accepted  in 
their  stead.  The  asses,  cattle,  sheep,  and  goats 
of  Asia  are  now  the  domestic  animals  of  the 
negroes  and  of  the  whites  in  Africa,  merely  be 
cause  it  is  easier,  more  profitable,  and  more 
convenient  to  deal  with  animals  already  ac 
customed  for  ages  to  the  yoke  of  domestic 
servitude  than  to  again  go  through  the  labor  in 
cident  to  changing  a  wild  into  a  tame  beast. 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  217 

It  is  probable  that  during  the  immense 
stretch  of  time  which  in  Europe  covered  the 
growth  of  the  various  successive  Palseolithic, 
and  finally  Neolithic,  cultures  —  the  "old-stone" 
ages  during  which  man  used  stone  implements 
which  he  merely  chipped  and  flaked,  and  the 
"new-stone"  age  in  which  he  ground  and 
polished  them  -  -  there  happened  time  and  again 
what  has  happened  in  the  history  and  pre 
history  of  man  in  Africa  and  North  America. 
One  of  the  incidents  in  this  parallelism  is  the 
way  in  which  the  inhabitants  accepted  animals 
already  trained  and  brought  from  elsewhere 
rather  than  attempt  to  train  the  similar  beasts 
of  their  own  forests.  Doubtless  the  reason 
why  the  European  bison  is  not  a  domestic 
animal  is  exactly  the  same  as  the  reason  why 
the  American  bison  and  African  buffalo  are 
not  domestic  animals.  The  northern  European 
hunting  savages  were  displaced  or  subjugated 
by,  or  received  a  higher  culture  from,  tribes 
bringing  from  Asia  or  from  the  Mediterranean 
lands  the  cattle  they  had  already  tamed.  The 
same  things  happened,  in  Africa  south  of  the 
Sahara  while  it  was  still  shrouded  from  civilized 
vision,  and  in  America  since  the  coming  of  the 
European. 

These  hunting  savages  existed  for  ages,  for 


218     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

hundreds  of  thousands  of  years,  in  Europe. 
During  this  period  of  time  —  immense  by  his 
toric  standards,  yet  geologically  a  mere  mo 
ment  —  many  different  human  types  succeeded 
one  another.  The  climate  swung  to  and  from 
glacial  to  subtropical;  fauna  succeeded  fauna. 
One  group  of  species  of  big  beasts  succeeded 
another  as  the  climate  and  plant  life  changed; 
and  then  itself  gave  place  to  a  third;  and  per 
haps  once  more  resumed  its  ancient  place 
as  the  physical  conditions  again  became  what 
they  once  had  been.  At  certain  periods  the 
musk-ox,  the  reindeer,  the  woolly  rhinoceros, 
and  the  hairy  mammoth,  together  with  huge 
cave-bears,  were  found;  at  other  periods  south 
ern  forms  of  elephant  and  rhinoceros,  and 
such  tropical  creatures  as  the  hippopotamus, 
replaced  the  beasts  of  the  snow  land.  Horses 
of  different  species  were  sometimes  present  in 
incredible  numbers.  There  were  species  of 
wild  cattle,  including  the  European  bison,  and 
the  urus  or  aurochs  —  spoken  of  by  Caesar, 
and  kin  to,  and  doubtless  partly  ancestral  to, 
the  tame  ox.  The  cave-lion,  perhaps  indis 
tinguishable  from  the  modern  African  lion,  was 
the  most  formidable  beast  of  prey.  I  say  "per 
haps"  indistinguishable,  for  we  cannot  be  quite 
certain.  Some  of  the  races  of  cave-dwelling 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  219 

men  were  good  artists,  and  carved  spirited 
figures  of  mammoth,  rhinoceros,  bison,  horse, 
reindeer,  and  bear  on  ivory,  or  on  the  walls  of 
caves.  The  big  lion-like  cats  appear  only 
rarely  in  these  pictures. 

In  most  cases  the  arctic  and  warm-temperate 
or  near-tropical  animals  supplanted  one  another 
only  incompletely  as  the  waves  of  life  advanced 
and  receded  when  the  climate  changed.  This 
seems  a  rather  puzzling  conjunction.  The  ex 
planation  is  twofold.  When  the  climate  changes, 
when  it  becomes  warmer,  for  instance,  northern 
creatures  that  once  were  at  home  in  the  low 
lands  draw  off  into  the  neighboring  highlands, 
leaving  their  old  haunts  to  newcomers  from  the 
south,  while  nevertheless  the  two  faunas  may 
be  only  a  few  miles  apart;  just  as  in  Montana 
and  Alberta  moose  and  caribou  in  certain  places 
were  found  side  by  side  with  the  prongbuck. 
Moreover,  some  species  possess  an  adaptability 
which  their  close  kin  do  not,  and  can  thrive 
under  widely  different  temperature  conditions. 
A  century  ago  the  hippopotamus  was  found  in 
the  temperate  Cape  Colony,  close  to  mountain 
ranges  climatically  fit  for  the  typical  beasts  of 
north-temperate  Eurasia.  In  Arizona  at  the 
present  day  mammals  and  birds  of  the  Canadian 
fauna  live  on  the  mountain  tops  around  the 


220     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

bases  of  which  flourish  animals  characteristic  of 
the  tropical  Mexican  plateau ;  the  former  having 
been  left  stranded  on  high  mountain  islands 
when,  with  the  retreat  of  the  glaciers,  the  cli 
mate  of  the  United  States  grew  warmer  and 
the  tide  of  southern  life-forms  swept  northward 
over  the  lowlands.  Under  such  conditions  the 
same  river  deposits  might  show  a  combination 
of  utterly  different  faunas.  Moreover,  some 
modern  animals  are  found  from  the  arctics  to 
the  tropics.  The  American  lynx  extends,  in 
closely  connected  forms,  from  the  torrid  deserts 
of  Mexico  to  arctic  Alaska;  so  does  the  moun 
tain-sheep.  The  tiger  flourishes  in  the  steaming 
Malay  forests  and  in  snowy  Manchuria.  I  have 
found  the  cougar  breeding  in  the  frozen,  bitter 
midwinter  among  the  high  Rockies,  in  a  coun 
try  where  snow  covered  the  ground  for  six 
months,  and  where  the  caribou  would  be  en 
tirely  at  home;  and  again  in  Brazil  under  the 
equator,  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  hot-house. 
There  were  periods,  during  the  ages  before  his 
tory  dawned,  but  when  man  had  long  dwelt  in 
Europe,  in  which  herds  of  reindeer  may  have 
roamed  the  French  and  English  uplands  within 
sight  of  rivers  wherein  the  hippopotamus  dwelt 
as  comfortably  as  he  recently  did  at  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope. 


PRIMEVAL  MAN 

Some  of  the  more  recent  of  these  European 
hunting  savages -- those  who  were  perhaps  in 
part  our  own  forefathers,  or  who  perhaps  were 
of  substantially  the  same  ethnic  type  as  the 
men  of  the  older  race  strains  in  northeastern 
Asia,  and  even  possibly  of  the  American  In 
dians  —  and  many  of  their  more  remote  prede 
cessors  were  contemporaries  of  the  lion,  the 
horse,  and  the  elephant.  Different  species  of 
horse  and  elephant  succeeded  one  another.  The 
earlier  ones  were  contemporaries  of  the  hippo 
potamus  and  of  not  only  the  lion  but  the  sabre- 
tooth.  When  the  hairy  elephant,  the  mammoth, 
was  present,  the  fauna  also  often  included 
the  cave-lion,  cave-hyena,  cave-bear,  wolf,  boar, 
woolly  rhinoceros,  many  species  of  deer  (in 
cluding  the  moose  and  that  huge  fallow  deer, 
the  Irish  elk),  horses,  and  the  bison  and  the 
aurochs.  The  mammoth  and  woolly  rhinoceros 
died  out  so  recently  that  their  carcasses  are  dis 
covered  preserved  in  the  Siberian  ice,  and  the 
undigested  food  in  their  stomachs  shows  that 
they  ate  northern  plants  of  the  kinds  now  com 
mon,  and  the  twigs  of  the  conifers  and  other 
trees  which  still  flourish  in  the  boreal  realm  of 
both  hemispheres. 

The  lion  was  doubtless  the  most  dreaded  foe 
of  the  ancient  European,  just  as  he  is  to  this 


222     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

day  of  certain  African  tribes.  The  Palaeolithic 
hunters  slaughtered  myriads  of  wild  horses, 
just  as  the  ebony-hued  hunters  of  Africa  now 
slaughter  the  zebra  and  feast  on  its  oily  flesh. 
The  spirited  carvings  and  sketches  of  the  hairy 
mammoth  by  the  later  Palaeolithic  cave-dwellers 
show  that  the  elephant  of  the  cold  northlands 
had  impressed  their  imaginations  precisely  as 
the  hairless  elephant  of  the  hot  south  now  im 
presses  the  imaginations  of  the  tribes  that  dwell 
under  the  vertical  African  sun.  The  rhinoceros 
and  wild  cattle  of  the  pine  forests  played  in 
their  lives  the  part  played  in  the  lives  of  our 
contemporaries,  the  hunting  tribes  of  Africa,  by 
the  rhinoceros  and  the  buffalo  —  the  African 
wild  ox  —  which  dwell  among  open  forests  of 
acacias  and  drink  from  palm-bordered  rivers. 
They  saw  no  animal  like  that  strange  creature, 
the  African  giraffe;  and  several  kinds  of  deer 
took  the  place  of  the  varied  species  of  bovine 
ruminants  which,  in  popular  parlance,  we  group 
together  as  antelopes. 

Substantially  the  fauna  of  mighty  beasts 
which  furnished  the  means  of  livelihood,  and 
also  constantly  offered  the  menace  of  death,  to 
our  European  forefathers  —  or  to  the  predeces 
sors  of  our  forefathers  —  was  like  that  magnifi 
cent  fauna  which  we  who  have  travelled  among 


PRIMEVAL  MAN 

the  savages  of  present-day  Africa  count  it  one 
of  our  greatest  pleasures  to  have  seen.  During 
the  ages  when  the  successive  races  of  hunter- 
savages  dwelt  in  Europe  a  similar  magnificent 
fauna  of  huge  and  strange  beasts  flourished  on 
all  the  continents  of  the  globe  except  in  Aus 
tralia.  In  Europe  it  vanished  in  prehistoric 
times,  when  man  had  long  dwelt  in  the  land. 
In  Africa  south  of  the  Sahara,  and  partially 
in  spots  of  Asia,  it  has  persisted  to  this  day. 
In  North  America  it  died  out  before,  or  per 
haps,  as  regards  the  last  stragglers,  immediately 
after,  the  coming  of  man;  in  South  America  it 
seems  clear  that  it  survived,  at  least  in  places, 
until  he  was  well  established. 

The  three  abundant  and  conspicuous  beasts, 
all  three  typical  of  the  great  mammalian  fauna 
which  was  contemporary  with  the  prehistoric 
human  hunters,  and  all  three  common  to  all 
the  continents  on  which  this  great  mammalian 
fauna  was  found,  were  the  lion  -  -  using  the 
name  to  cover  several  species  of  huge  horse- 
killing  and  man -killing  cats;  the  elephant,  in 
cluding  several  totally  different  species,  among 
them  the  mammoth  and  mastodon;  and  the 
horse,  including  numerous  widely  different 
species.  Together  with  these  three  universally 
distributed  animals  were  many  others  belonging 


224     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

to  types  confined  to  certain  of  the  continents. 
Rhinoceros  were  found  in  Europe,  Asia,  and 
Africa  (they  had  once  flourished  in  North 
America  but  had  died  out  long  before  man  ap 
peared  on  the  globe).  Camels  were  found  in 
Asia,  in  South  America,  and  especially  in  North 
America,  which  was  their  centre  of  abundance 
and  the  place  where  they  had  developed.  Wild 
oxen  were  found  in  all  the  continents  except 
South  America;  deer  everywhere  except  in  true 
Africa,  zoogeographical  Africa,  Africa  south  of 
the  Sahara.  The  pigs  of  the  Old  World  were  re 
placed  by  the  entirely  different  peccaries  of  the 
New  World.  Sheep,  goats,  and  goat-antelopes 
lived  in  Eurasia  and  North  America.  Most  of 
the  groups  of  big  ruminants  commonly  called 
"antelopes"  are  now  confined  to  Africa;  but  it 
appears  that  formerly  various  representatives 
of  them  reached  America.  The  giraffe  through 
this  period  was  purely  African;  the  hippo 
potamus  has  retreated  to  Africa,  although  in 
the  period  we  are  considering  its  range  extended 
to  Eurasia.  In  South  America  were  many  ex 
traordinary  creatures  totally  different  from  one 
another,  including  ground-sloths  as  big  as  ele 
phants.  Two  or  three  outlying  representatives 
of  the  ground-sloths  had  wandered  into  North 
America;  but  elsewhere  there  were  no  animals 


PRIMEVAL  MAN 

in  any  way  resembling  them.  The  horse,  the 
lion,  and  the  elephant  were  the  three  striking 
representatives  of  this  vast  and  varied  fauna 
which  were  common  to  all  five  continents. 

The  North  American  fauna  of  this  type 
reached  its  height  about  the  time  —  extending 
over  many  scores  of  thousands  of  years  - 
when  successive  ice  ages  alternated  with  long 
stretches  of  temperate  or  subtropical  climate 
throughout  the  northern  hemisphere.  During 
the  period  when  this  great  North  American 
fauna  flourished  hunter-savages  of  archaic  type 
lived  amid,  and  partly  on,  the  great  game  of 
Europe.  But,  as  far  as  we  know,  men  did  not 
come  to  America  until  after,  or  at  the  very  end 
of,  the  time  when  these  huge  grass-eaters  and 
twig-eaters,  and  the  huge  flesh-eaters  which 
preyed  on  them,  vanished  from  the  earth,  owing 
to  causes  which  in  most  cases  we  cannot  as  yet 
even  guess. 

Much  the  most  striking  and  interesting  col 
lection  of  the  remains  of  this  wonderful  fauna 
is  to  be  found  near  one  of  our  big  cities.  On 
the  outskirts  of  Los  Angeles,  in  southern  Cali 
fornia,  are  asphalt  deposits  springing  from 
petroleum  beds  in  the  shales  below.  The  oil 
seeping  up  to  the  surface  has  formed  shallow, 
spread-out  pools  and,  occasionally,  deep  pits 


226     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

covered  with  water.  In  part  of  the  area  these 
pits  and  pools  of  tar  have  existed  for  scores  of 
thousands  or  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years, 
since  far  back  in  the  Pleistocene.  They  then 
acted  as  very  dangerous  and  efficient  mammal 
traps  and  bird  traps  —  and  now  continue  so 
to  act,  for  the  small  mammals  and  the  birds 
of  the  neighborhood  still  wander  into  them, 
get  caught  in  the  sticky  substance,  and  die,  as 
I  have  myself  seen.  Moreover  the  tar  serves 
as  a  preservative  of  the  bones  of  the  creatures 
that  thus  perish.  In  consequence  some  of  the 
ancient  pits  and  pools  are  filled  with  immense 
masses  of  the  well-preserved  bones  of  the  strange 
creatures  that  were  smothered  in  them  ages 
ago. 

Nowhere  else  is  there  any  such  assemblage 
of  remains  giving  such  a  nearly  complete  pic 
ture  of  the  fauna  of  a  given  region  at  a  given 
time.  A  striking  peculiarity  is  that  the  skeletons 
of  the  flesh-eaters  far  surpass  in  number  the 
skeletons  of  the  plant-eaters.  This  is  something 
almost  unique,  for  of  course  predatory  animals 
are  of  necessity  much  less  numerous  than  the 
animals  on  which  they  prey.  The  reversal  in 
this  case  of  the  usual  proportions  between  the 
skeletal  remains  of  herbivorous  and  carnivorous 
beasts  and  birds  is  due  to  the  character  of  the 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  227 

deposits.  The  tar  round  the  edges  of  the  pools 
or  pits  hardens,  becomes  covered  with  dust,  and 
looks  like  solid  earth;  and  water  often  stands 
in  the  tar  pits  after  rain,  while  at  night  the 
shallow  pools  of  fresh  tar  look  like  water.  Evi 
dently  the  big  grazing  or  browsing  beasts  now 
and  then  wandered  out  on  the  hard  asphalt  next 
the  solid  ground,  and  suddenly  became  mired 
in  the  soft  tar  beyond.  Probably  the  pits  in 
which  water  stood  served  as  traps  year  after 
year  as  the  thirsty  herds  sought  drink.  Then 
each  dead  or  dying  animal  became  itself  a  lure 
for  all  kinds  of  flesh-eating  beasts  and  birds, 
which  in  their  turn  were  entrapped  in  the  sticky 
mass.  In  similar  manner,  thirty  years  ago  on 
the  Little  Missouri,  I  have  known  a  grizzly 
bear,  a  couple  of  timber-wolves,  and  several 
coyotes  to  be  attracted  to  the  carcass  of  a  steer 
which  had  bogged  down  in  the  springtime  be 
side  an  alkali  pool. 

Another  result  of  the  peculiar  conditions  un 
der  which  the  skeletons  accumulated  is  that  an 
unusually  large  number  of  very  old,  very  young, 
and  maimed  or  crippled  creatures  were  en 
trapped.  Doubtless  animals  in  full  vigor  were 
more  apt  to  work  themselves  free  at  the  moment 
when  they  found  they  were  caught  in  the  tar; 
and,  moreover,  a  wolf  or  sabretooth  which  was 


228     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

weakened  by  age  or  by  wounds  received  in  en 
counter  with  its  rivals,  or  with  some  formidable 
quarry,  and  which  therefore  found  its  usual 
prey  difficult  to  catch,  would  be  apt  to  hang 
around  places  where  carcasses,  or  living  creatures 
still  feebly  struggling,  offered  themselves  to  rav 
enous  appetites. 

The  plant  remains  in  these  deposits  show 
that  the  climate  and  vegetation  were  sub 
stantially  those  of  California  to-day,  although 
in  some  respects  indicating  northern  rather 
than  southern  California.  There  were  cypress- 
trees  of  a  kind  still  common  farther  north, 
manzanita,  juniper,  and  oaks.  Evidently  the 
region  was  one  of  open,  grassy  plains  varied 
with  timber  belts  and  groves.  It  has  been  said 
that  to  support  such  a  fauna  the  vegetation 
must  have  been  much  more  luxuriant  than  in 
this  region  at  present.  This  is  probably  an 
error.  The  great  game  regions  of  Africa  are 
those  of  scanty  vegetation.  Thick  forest  holds 
far  less  big  animal  life.  Crossing  the  sunny 
Athi  or  Kapiti  plains  of  East  Africa,  where  the 
few  trees  are  thorny,  stunted  acacias  and  the 
low  grass  is  brown  and  brittle  under  the  drought, 
the  herds  of  zebra,  hartebeest,  wildebeest,  and 
gazelle  are  a  perpetual  delight  and  wonder; 
and  elephant,  rhinoceros,  and  buffalo  abounded 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  229 

on  them  in  the  days  before  the  white  man  came. 
On  the  Guaso  Nyero  of  the  north,  and  in  the 
Sotik,  the  country  was  even  drier  at  the  time 
of  my  visit,  and  the  character  of  the  vegeta 
tion  showed  how  light  the  normal  rainfall  was. 
The  land  was  open,  grassy  plain,  or  was  thinly 
covered  with  thorn  scrub,  with  here  and  there 
acacia  groves  and  narrow  belts  of  thicker  timber 
growth  along  the  watercourses,  and  in  the  Sotik 
gnarled  gray  olives.  Yet  the  game  swarmed. 
We  watched  the  teeming  masses  come  down 
to  drink  at  the  shrunken  rivers  or  at  the  dwin 
dling  ponds  beside  which  our  tents  were  pitched. 
As  the  line  of  the  safari  walked  forward  under 
the  brazen  sky,  while  we  white  men  rode  at 
the  head  with  our  rifles,  the  herds  of  strange 
and  beautiful  wild  creatures  watched  us,  with 
ears  pricked  forward,  or  stood  heedless  in  the 
thin  shade  of  the  trees,  their  tails  switching 
ceaselessly  at  the  biting  flies.  In  wealth  of 
numbers,  in  rich  variety  and  grandeur  of  spe 
cies,  the  magnificent  fauna  we  then  saw  was  not 
substantially  inferior  to  that  which  an  age  be 
fore  dwelt  on  the  California  plains. 

This  Pleistocene  California  fauna  included 
many  beasts  which  persisted  in  the  land  until 
our  own  day.  There  were  cougars,  lynxes, 
timber-wolves,  gray  foxes,  coyotes,  bears,  prong- 


230     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

horn  antelopes  and  black-tail  or  white-tail  deer 
nearly,  or  quite,  identical  with  the  modern 
forms.  They  were  the  same  animals  which  I 
and  my  fellow  ranchmen  hunted  when,  in  the 
early  eighties  of  the  last  century,  our  branded 
cattle  were  first  driven  to  the  Little  Missouri. 
They  swarmed  on  the  upper  Missouri  and  the 
Yellowstone  when  Lewis  and  Clark  found  the 
bison  and  wapiti  so  tame  that  they  would  hardly 
move  out  of  the  way,  while  the  grizzly  bears 
slept  on  the  open  plains  and  fearlessly  attacked 
the  travellers.  But  in  the  Pleistocene,  at  the 
time  we  are  considering,  the  day  of  these  modern 
creatures  had  only  begun.  The  contents  of  the 
tar-pits  show  that  the  animals  named  above 
were  few  in  number,  compared  to  the  great 
beasts  with  which  they  were  associated. 

The  giant  among  these  Pleistocene  giants  of 
California,  probably  the  largest  mammal  that 
ever  walked  the  earth,  was  the  huge  imperial 
elephant.  This  mighty  beast  stood  at  least 
two  feet  higher  than  the  colossal  African  ele 
phant  of  to-day,  which  itself  is  bigger  than  the 
mammoth,  and  as  big  as  any  other  extinct 
elephant.  The  curved  tusks  of  the  imperial 
elephant  reached  a  length  of  sixteen  feet.  A 
herd  of  such  mighty  beasts  must  have  been  an 
awe-inspiring  sight  —  had  there  been  human 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  231 

eyes  to  see  it.  Nor  were  they  the  only  represen 
tatives  of  their  family.  A  much  more  archaic 
type  of  elephant,  the  mastodon,  flourished  be 
side  its  gigantic  cousin.  The  mastodon  was  a 
relatively  squat  creature,  standing  certainly 
four  feet  shorter  than  the  imperial  elephant, 
with  comparatively  small  and  slightly  curved 
tusks  and  a  flatter  head.  Enormous  numbers 
of  mastodons  ranged  over  what  is  now  the 
United  States,  and  the  adjacent  parts  of  Can 
ada  and  Mexico.  The  mastodons  represented  a 
stage  farther  back  in  the  evolutionary  line  than 
the  true  elephants,  and  in  the  Old  World  they 
died  out  completely  before  the  latter  disap 
peared  even  from  Europe  and  Siberia.  But  in 
North  America,  for  unknown  reasons,  they 
outlasted  their  more  highly  developed  kinsfolk 
and  rivals,  and  there  is  some  ground  for  be 
lieving  that  they  did  not  completely  disap 
pear  until  after  the  arrival  of  man  on  this  con 
tinent. 

The  elephant  stock  developed  in  the  Old 
World,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  true  ele 
phants  were  geologically  recent  immigrants  to 
America,  coming  across  the  land  bridge  which 
then  connected  Alaska  and  Siberia.  In  Cali 
fornia  they  encountered  the  big  descendants  of 
other  big  immigrants,  which  had  reached  North 


232     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

America  by  another  temporary  land  bridge, 
but  from  another  continent,  South  America. 
These  were  the  ground-sloths,  giant  edentates, 
which  reached  an  extraordinary  development 
in  the  southern  half  of  our  hemisphere,  where 
distant  and  diminutive  relatives  -  -  tree-sloths, 
ant-eaters,  armadillos  —  still  live.  The  most 
plentiful  of  these  California  ground-sloths,  the 
mylodon,  was  about  the  size  of  a  rhinoceros; 
an  unwieldy,  slow-moving  creature,  feeding  on 
plants,  and  in  appearance  utterly  unlike  any 
thing  now  living. 

Together  with  these  great  beasts  belonging 
to  stocks  that  in  recent  geologic  time  had  im 
migrated  hither  from  the  Old  World  and  from 
the  southern  half  of  the  New  World  was  an 
other  huge  beast  of  remote  native  ancestry. 
This  was  a  giant  camel,  with  a  neck  almost  like 
that  of  a  giraffe.  Camels  —  including  llamas  - 
developed  in  North  America.  Their  evolu 
tionary  history  certainly  stretched  through  a 
period  of  two  or  three  million  -  -  perhaps  four 
or  five  million  —  years  on  this  continent,  reach 
ing  back  to  a  little  Eocene  ancestor  no  bigger 
than  a  jack-rabbit.  Yet  after  living  and  develop 
ing  in  the  land  through  these  untold  ages,  over 
a  period  inconceivably  long  to  our  apprehension, 
the  camels  completely  died  out  on  this  continent 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  233 

of  their  birth,  although  not  until  they  had  sent 
branches  to  Asia  and  South  America,  where 
their  descendants  still  survive. 

Two  other  grass-eating  beasts,  of  large  size  — • 
although  smaller  than  the  above  —  were  also 
plentiful.  One,  a  bison,  bigger,  straighter- 
horned  and  less  specialized  than  our  modern 
bison,  represented  the  cattle,  which  were  among 
the  animals  that  passed  to  America  over  the 
Alaskan  land  bridge  in  Pleistocene  time. 

The  other  was  a  big,  coarse-headed  horse, 
much  larger  than  any  modern  wild  horse,  and 
kin  to  the  then  existing  giant  horse  of  Texas, 
which  was  the  size  of  a  percheron.  The  horses, 
like  the  camels,  had  gone  through  their  develop 
mental  history  on  this  continent,  the  earliest 
ancestor,  the  little  four-toed  "dawn  horse"  of 
the  Eocene,  being  likewise  the  size  of  a  jack- 
rabbit.  Through  millions  of  years,  while  myr 
iads  of  generations  followed  one  another,  the 
two  families  developed  side  by  side,  increasing 
in  size  and  seemingly  in  adaptation  to  the  envi 
ronment.  Each  stock  branched  into  many  dif 
ferent  species  and  genera.  They  spread  into  the 
Old  World  and  into  South  America.  Then,  sud 
denly, --that  is,  suddenly  in  zoologic  sense  — 
both  completely  died  out  in  their  ancient  home, 
and  the  horses  in  South  America  also,  whereas 


234     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

half  a  dozen  very  distinct  species  are  still  found 
in  Asia  and  Africa. 

All  these  great  creatures  wandered  in  herds 
to  and  fro  across  the  grassy  Californian  plains 
and  among  the  reaches  of  open  forest.  Prey 
ing  upon  them  were  certain  carnivores  grimmer 
and  more  terrible  than  any  now  existing.  The 
most  distinctive  and  seemingly  the  most  plen 
tiful  was  the  sabretooth.  This  was  a  huge, 
squat,  short-tailed,  heavily  built  cat  with  upper 
canines  which  had  developed  to  an  almost 
walrus-like  length;  only,  instead  of  being  round 
and  blunt  like  walrus  tusks,  they  were  sharp-, 
with  a  thin,  cutting  edge,  so  that  they  really 
were  entitled  to  be  called  sabres  or  daggers. 
Whether  the  creature  was  colored  like  a  lion 
or  like  a  tiger  or  like  neither,  we  do  not  know, 
for  it  had  no  connection  with  either  save  its 
remote  kinship  with  all  the  cats.  The  sabre- 
tooth  cats,  like  the  true  cats,  had  gone  through 
an  immensely  long  period  of  developmental  his 
tory  in  North  America,  although  they  did  not 
appear  here  as  early  as  the  little  camels  and 
horses.  Far  back  across  the  ages,  at  or  just 
after  the  close  of  the  Eocene  --  the  "dawn  age" 
of  mammalian  life  —  certain  moderate-sized  or 
small  cat-like  creatures  existed  on  this  continent, 
doubtless  ancestral  to  the  sabretooth,  but  so 


PRIMEVAL   MAN  235 

generalized  in  type  that  they  display  close 
affinities  with  the  true  cats,  and  even  on  cer 
tain  points  with  the  primitive  dog  creatures  of 
the  time.  Age  followed  age  —  Oligocene,  Mio 
cene,  Pliocene.  The  continents  rose  and  sank 
and  were  connected  and  disconnected.  Vast 
lakes  appeared  and  disappeared.  Mountain 
chains  wore  down  and  other  mountain  chains 
were  thrust  upward.  Periods  of  heat,  during 
which  rich  forests  flourished  north  of  the  arctic 
circle,  were  followed  by  periods  of  cold,  when 
the  glacial  ice-cap  crept  down  half-way  across 
the  present  temperate  zone.  Slowly,  slowly, 
while  the  surface  of  the  world  thus  changed, 
and  through  innumerable  reaches  of  time,  the 
sabretooth  cats  and  true  cats  developed  along 
many  different  lines  in  both  the  Old  World 
and  the  New.  One  form  of  sabretooth  was  in 
Europe  with  the  bestial  near-human  things 
who  were  the  immediate  predecessors  of  the 
first  low  but  entirely  human  savages.  It  was 
in  the  two  Americas,  however,  that  the  sabre 
tooth  line  culminated,  immediately  before  its 
final  extinction,  in  its  largest  and  most  formi 
dable  forms.  This  California  sabretooth  was 
not  taller  than  a  big  cougar  or  leopard,  but 
was  probably  as  heavy  as  a  fair-sized  lion.  Its 
skeletal  build  is  such  that  it  cannot  have  been 


236     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

an  agile  creature,  apt  at  the  pursuit  of  light  and 
swift  prey.  By  rugged  strength  and  by  the 
development  of  its  terrible  stabbing  and  cutting 
dagger  teeth,  that  is,  by  sheer  fighting  ability, 
it  was  fitted  for  attack  upon  and  battle  with 
the  massive  herbivores  then  so  plentiful.  It 
must  indeed  have  been  a  fearsome  beast  in 
close  grapple.  Doubtless  with  its  sharp,  re 
tractile  claws  it  hung  onto  the  huge  bodies  of 
elephant,  camel,  and  ground-sloth,  of  horse  and 
bison,  while  the  sabres  were  driven  again  and 
again  into  the  mortal  parts  of  the  prey  and 
slashed  the  flesh  as  they  withdrew.  It  seems 
possible  that  the  mouth  was  opened  wide  and 
stabbing  blows  delivered,  almost  as  a  rattle 
snake  strikes  with  raised  fangs.  Vast  numbers 
of  sabretooth  skeletons  have  been  found  in 
the  asphalt;  evidently  the  strange,  formidable 
creature  haunted  any  region  which  held  at 
traction  for  the  various  kinds  of  heavy  game 
on  which  it  preyed. 

The  only  other  carnivore  as  abundant  as  the 
sabretooth  was  a  giant  wolf.  This  was  heavier 
than  any  existing  wolf,  with  head  and  teeth 
still  larger  in  proportion.  The  legs  were  com 
paratively  light.  Evidently,  like  the  sabre 
tooth,  this  giant  wolf  had  become  specialized  as 
a  beast  of  battle,  fitted  to  attack  and  master 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  237 

the  bulky  browsers  and  grazers,  but  not  to  over 
take  those  that  were  smaller  and  swifter.  The 
massive  jaws  and  teeth  could  smash  heavy 
bones  and  tear  the  toughest  hide;  and  a  hungry 
pack  of  these  monsters,  able  to  assail  in  open1 
fight  any  quarry  no  matter  how  fierce  or  power 
ful,  must  have  spread  dire  havoc  and  dismay 
among  all  things  that  could  not  escape  by  flight. 

There  were  two  still  larger  predatory  species, 
which  were  much  less  plentiful  than  either  the 
wolf  or  the  sabretooth.  One  was  a  short-faced 
cave-bear,  far  larger  than  even  the  huge  Alaskan 
bear  of  to-day.  Doubtless  it  took  toll  of  the 
herds;  but  bears  are  omnivorous  beasts,  and 
not  purely  predatory  in  the  sense  that  is  true  of 
those  finished  killers,  the  wolves  and  big  cats. 
Unlike  the  wolves  and  cats,  bears  were  geolog 
ically  recent  immigrants  to  America. 

The  other  was  a  true  cat,  a  mighty  beast; 
bigger  than  the  African  lion  of  to-day;  indeed, 
perhaps  the  biggest  and  most  powerful  lion-like 
or  tiger-like  cat  that  ever  existed.  Seemingly 
it  was  much  rarer  than  the  sabretooth;  but  it 
is  possible  that  this  seeming  rarity  was  due  to 
its  not  lurking  in  the  neighborhood  of  pools  and 
licks  but  travelling  more  freely  over  the  wastes, 
being  of  a  build  fit  not  only  for  combat  but  for 
an  active  and  wandering  life.  It  is  usually 


238     A   BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

spoken  of  as  kin  to  the  African  lion,  a  decidedly 
smaller  beast.  It  is  possible  that  its  real  kin 
ship  lies  with  the  tiger.  The  Manchurian  form 
of  the  tiger  is  an  enormous  beast,  and  a  careful 
comparison  of  the  skulls  and  skeletons  may  show 
that  it  equals  in  size  the  huge  western  American 
cat  of  Pleistocene  times.  I  have  already  spoken 
of  the  fact  that  in  many  cases  it  is  almost  im 
possible  to  distinguish  the  lion  and  tiger  apart 
by  the  bones  alone;  and  it  may  be  that  the 
exact  affinities  of  these  recently  extinct  species 
with  living  forms  cannot  be  definitely  deter 
mined.  But  during  historic  and  prehistoric 
times  the  lion  has  been  a  beast  of  western  Eurasia 
and  of  Africa.  The  tiger,  on  the  contrary,  is  and 
has  been  a  beast  of  eastern  Asia,  and  apparently 
has  been  spreading  westward  and  perhaps  south 
ward  -  -  that  it  was  not  as  ancient  an  inhabi 
tant  of  jungle-covered  southern  India  as  the 
elephant  and  leopard  seems  probable  from  the 
fact  that  it  is  not  found  in  Ceylon,  which  island 
in  all  likelihood  preserves  most  of  the  southern 
Indian  fauna  that  existed  prior  to  its  separation 
from  the  mainland.  Moreover,  the  finest  form 
of  tiger  exists  in  cold  northeastern  Asia.  In 
Pleistocene  times  this  portion  of  Asia  was  con 
nected  by  a  broad  land  bridge  with  western 
America,  where  the  mighty  American  cat  then 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  239 

roved  and  preyed  on  the  herds  of  huge  plant- 
eating  beasts.  We  know  that  many  Asiatic 
beasts  crossed  over  this  land  bridge  --  the  bears, 
bison,  mountain-sheep,  moose,  caribou,  and 
wapiti,  which  still  live  both  in  Asia  and  North 
America,  and  the  mammoth  and  cave-bears, 
which  have  died  out  on  both  continents.  It  is 
at  least  possible  --  further  investigation  may  or 
may  not  show  it  to  be  more  than  possible  -  -  that 
the  huge  Pleistocene  cat  of  western  America 
was  the  collateral  ancestor  of  the  Manchurian 
tiger.  Whether  it  was  another  immigrant  from 
Asia,  or  a  developed  form  of  some  big  American 
Pliocene  cat,  cannot  with  our  present  knowledge 
be  determined. 

Surely  the  thought  of  this  vast  and  teeming, 
and  utterly  vanished  wild  life,  must  strongly 
appeal  to  every  man  of  knowledge  and  love  of 
nature,  who  is  gifted  with  the  imaginative  power 
to  visualize  the  past  and  to  feel  the  keen  delight 
known  only  to  those  who  care  intensely  both  for 
thought  and  for  action,  both  for  the  rich  ex 
perience  acquired  by  toil  and  adventure,  and 
for  the  rich  experience  obtained  through  books 
recording  the  studies  of  others. 

Doubtless  such  capacity  of  imaginative  ap 
preciation  is  of  no  practical  help  to  the  hunter 
of  big  game  to-day,  any  more  than  the  power  to 


240     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

visualize  the  long-vanished  past  in  history  helps 
a  practical  politican  to  do  his  ordinary  work  in 
the  present  workaday  world.  The  governor  of 
Gibraltar  or  of  Aden,  who  cares  merely  to  do 
his  own  intensely  practical  work,  need  know 
nothing  whatever  about  any  history  more  an 
cient  than  that  of  the  last  generation.  But  this 
is  not  true  of  the  traveller.  It  is  not  even  true 
of  the  politician  who  wishes  to  get  full  enjoy 
ment  out  of  life  without  shirking  its  duties.  He 
certainly  must  not  become  a  mere  dreamer,  or 
believe  that  his  dreams  will  help  him  in  prac 
tical  action.  But  joy,  just  for  joy's  sake,  has 
its  place  too,  and  need  in  no  way  interfere  with 
work;  and,  of  course,  this  is  as  true  of  the  joy 
of  the  mind  as  of  the  joy  of  the  body.  As  a 
man  steams  into  the  Mediterranean  between  the 
African  coast  and  the  "purple,  painted  head 
lands"  of  Spain,  it  is  well  for  him  if  he  can 
bring  before  his  vision  the  galleys  of  the  Greek 
and  Carthaginian  mercantile  adventurers,  and 
of  the  conquering  Romans;  the  boats  of  the 
wolf -hearted  Arabs;  the  long  "snakes"  of  the 
Norse  pirates,  Odin's  darlings;  the  stately  and 
gorgeous  war  craft  of  Don  John,  the  square- 
sailed  ships  of  the  fighting  D4itch  admirals,  and 
the  lofty  three-deckers  of  Nelson,  the  greatest 
of  all  the  masters  of  the  sea.  Aden  is  like  a 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  241 

furnace  between  the  hot  sea  and  the  hot  sand; 
but  at  the  sight  of  the  old  rock  cisterns,  carved 
by  forgotten  hands,  one  realizes  why  on  that 
coast  of  barren  desolation  every  maritime  peo 
ple  in  turn,  from  the  mists  that  shroud  an  im 
memorial  antiquity  to  our  own  day  of  fevered 
materialistic  civilization,  has  seized  Aden  Bay 
-  Egyptian,  Sabean,  Byzantine,  Turk,  Persian, 
Portuguese,  Englishman;  and  always,  a  few 
miles  distant,  in  the  thirsty  sands,  the  changeless 
desert  folk  have  waited  until  pride  spent  itself 
and  failed,  and  the  new  power  passed,  as  each 
old  power  had  passed,  and  then  the  merciless 
men  of  the  waste  once  more  claimed  their  own. 
Gibraltar  and  Aden  cannot  mean  to  the  un 
imaginative  what  they  mean  to  the  men  of 
vision,  to  the  men  stirred  by  the  hero  tales  of 
the  past,  by  the  dim  records  of  half -forgotten 
peoples.  These  men  may  or  may  not  do  their 
work  as  well  as  others,  but  their  gifts  count  in 
the  joy  of  living.  Enjoyment  the  same  in  kind 
comes  to  the  man  who  can  clothe  with  flesh  the 
dry  bones  of  bygone  ages,  and  can  see  before 
his  eyes  the  great  beasts,  hunters  and  hunted, 
the  beasts  so  long  dead,  which  thronged  the 
Californian  land  at  a  time  when  in  all  its  phys 
ical  features  it  had  already  become  essentially 
what  it  still  continues  to  be. 


242     A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

The  beast  life  of  this  prehistoric  California 
must  be  called  ancient  by  a  standard  which 
would  adjudge  the  Egyptian  pyramids  and  the 
Mesopotamian  palace  mounds  and  the  Maya 
forest  temples  to  be  modern.  Yet  wrhen  ex 
pressed  in  geologic  terms  it  was  but  of  yester 
day.  When  it  flourished  the  Eurasian  hunting 
savages  were  in  substantially  the  same  stage 
of  progress  as  the  African  hunting  savages  who 
now  live  surrounded  by  a  similar  fauna.  On 
the  whole,  taking  into  account  the  number, 
variety,  and  size  of  the  great  beasts,  the  fauna 
which  surrounded  Palaeolithic  man  in  Europe 
was  inferior  to  that  amid  which  dwell  the  black- 
skinned  savages  of  equatorial  Africa.  Even 
Africa,  however,  although  unmatched  in  its 
wealth  of  antelopes,  cannot  quite  parallel,  with 
its  lion,  elephant,  and  zebras,  the  lordlier  ele 
phant,  the  great  horse,  and  the  huge  cat  of  the 
earlier  Calif ornian  fauna;  and  the  giraffe,  the 
hyena,  the  rhinoceros,  and  the  hippopotamus 
do  not  quite  offset  the  sabretooth,  the  giant 
wolf,  the  mastodon,  the  various  species  of  enor 
mous  ground-sloths,  and  the  huge  camel;  the 
bison  and  buffalo  about  balance  each  other. 

There  were  no  human  eyes  to  see  nor  human 
ears  to  hear  what  went  on  in  southern  Cali 
fornia  when  it  held  an  animal  life  as  fierce  and 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  243 

strange  and  formidable  as  mid-Africa  to-day. 
The  towering  imperial  elephants  and  the  burly 
mastodons  trumpeted  their  approach  one  to 
the  other.  The  great  camels,  striding  noise 
lessly  on  their  padded  feet,  passed  the  clumsy 
ground-sloths  on  their  way  to  water.  The 
herds  of  huge  horses  and  bison  drank  together 
in  pools  where  the  edges  were  trodden  into 
mire-  by  innumerable  hoofs.  All  these  creatures 
grew  alertly  on  guard  when  the  shadows  length 
ened  and  the  long-drawn  baying  of  the  wolf 
pack  heralded  the  night  of  slaughter  and  of 
fear;  and  the  dusk  thrilled  with  the  ominous 
questing  yawns  of  sabretooth  and  giant  tiger, 
as  the  beasts  of  havoc  prowled  abroad  from 
their  day  lairs  among  the  manzanitas,  or  under 
cypress  and  live-oak. 

The  tar-pools  caught  birds  as  well  as  beasts. 
Most  of  these  birds  were  modern  -  -  vultures, 
eagles,  geese,  herons.  But  there  were  condor- 
like  birds  twice  the  size  of  any  living  condor, 
the  biggest  birds,  so  far  as  we  know,  that  ever 
flew.  There  were  also,  instead  of  wild  turkeys, 
great  quantities  of  wild  peacocks  —  at  least 
they  have  been  identified  as  peacocks  or  similar 
big,  pheasant-like  birds.  If  the  identification  is 
correct,  this  is  an  unexpected  discovery  and  a 
fresh  proof  of  how  this  extinct  American  fauna  at 


244     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

so  many  points  resembled  that  of  Asia.  It  was 
natural  that  a  collateral  ancestor  of  the  present 
Asiatic  pheasant-like  birds  should  dwell  beside 
a  collateral  ancestor  of  the  present  Asiatic 
tiger.1 

Moreover,  the  tar-pools  hold  human  bones. 
These,  however,  are  probably  of  much  later 
date  than  the  magnificent  fauna  above  de 
scribed,  perhaps  only  a  few  thousand  years  old. 
They  belong  to  a  rather  advanced  type  of  man. 
It  is  probable  that  before  man  came  to  Amer 
ica  at  all,  the  earlier  types  had  died  out  in 
Eurasia,  or  had  been  absorbed  and  developed, 
or  else  had  been  thrust  southward  into  Africa, 
Tasmania,  Australia,  and  remote  forest  tracts 
of  Indo-Malaysia,  where,  being  such  back 
ward  savages,  they  never  developed  anything 
remotely  resembling  a  civilization.  It  was 
probably  people  kin  to  some  of  the  later  cave- 


1  Professor  J.  C.  Merriam,  of  the  University  of  California,  first  studied 
this  fauna.  The  excavations  are  now  being  carried  on  by  Director 
Frank  S.  Daggett,  of  the  capital  Museum  of  Los  Angeles  County.  I 
have  spoken  above  of  the  vast  herds  of  game  encountered  over  a  cen 
tury  ago  by  Lewis  and  Clark  on  the  upper  Missouri.  The  journals  of 
these  two  explorers  form  an  American  classic,  and  they  have  found  a 
worthy  editor  in  Reuben  Gold  Thwaites;  there  could  not  be  an  edition 
more  satisfactory  from  every  standpoint  —  including  that  of  good  taste. 
In  anthropology  I  follow  the  views  of  Fairfield  Osborne  and  Ales 
Hfdlicka;  I  am  not  competent  to  decide  as  to  the  points  where  they 
differ;  and  they  would  be  the  first  to  say  that  some  of  the  hypotheses 
they  advance  must  be  accepted  as  provisional  until  our  knowledge  is 
greater. 


PRIMEVAL   MAN  245 

dwellers  who  furnished  the  first  (and  perhaps 
until  the  advent  of  the  white  man  the  only  im 
portant)  immigration  to  America.  These  im 
migrants,  the  ancestors  of  all  the  tribes  of  In 
dians,  spread  from  Alaska  to  Terra  del  Fuego. 
Over  most  of  the  territory  in  both  Americas 
they  remained  at  the  hunting  stage  of  savage 
life,  although  they  generally  supplemented  their 
hunting  by  a  certain  amount  of  cultivation  of 
the  soil,  and  although  in  places  they  developed 
into  advanced  and  very  peculiar  culture  com 
munities. 

When  these  savages  reached  North  America 
it  is  likely,  from  our  present  knowledge,  that 
the  terrible  and  magnificent  Pleistocene  fauna 
had  vanished,  although  in  places  the  last  sur 
vivors  of  the  mastodon,  and  perhaps  of  one  or 
two  other  forms,  may  still  have  lingered.  What 
were  the  causes  of  this  wide-spread,  and  com 
plete,  and  —  geologically  speaking  —  sudden  ex 
termination  of  so  many  and  so  varied  types  of 
great  herbivorous  creatures,  we  cannot  say.  It 
may  be  we  can  never  do  more  than  guess  at 
them.  It  is  certainly  an  extraordinary  thing 
that  complete  destruction  should  have  suddenly 
fallen  on  all,  literally  all,  of  the  species.  Camels 
and  horses,  after  they  had  dwelt  on  this  conti 
nent  for  millions  of  years,  since  almost  the  dawn 


246     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

of  mammalian  life,  developing  from  little  beasts 
the  size  of  woodchucks  into  the  largest  and 
most  stately  creatures  of  their  kind  that  ever 
trod  the  earth's  surface,  all  at  once  disappeared 
to  the  very  last  individual.  Ground-sloths  and 
elephants  vanished  likewise.  The  bigger  forms 
of  bison  also  died  out,  although  one  species 
remained.  Many  causes  of  extinction  have 
been  suggested.  Perhaps  all  of  them  were  more 
or  less  operative.  Perhaps  others  of  which  we 
know  nothing  were  operative.  We  cannot  say. 
But  as  regards  certain  of  the  formidable, 
but  heavy  rather  than  active,  beasts  of  prey 
it  is  possible  to  hazard  a  guess.  Compared  to 
agile  destroyers  like  the  cougar  and  the  timber- 
wolf,  the  sabretooth  and  the  big-headed,  small- 
legged  giant  wolf  were  strong,  heavy,  rather 
clumsy  creatures.  Predatory  animals  of  their 
kind  were  beasts  of  battle  rather  than  beasts 
of  the  chase.  They  were  fitted  to  overcome 
by  downright  fighting  strength  a  big,  slow, 
self-confident  quarry,  rather  than  to  run  down 
a  swift  and  timid  quarry  by  speed  or  creep  up 
to  a  wary  and  timid  quarry  by  sinuous  stealth. 
So  long  as  the  heavy  herbivores  were  the  most 
numerous  these  fighting  carnivores  were  dom 
inant  over  their  sly,  swift,  slinking  brethren. 
But  when  the  great  mass  of  plant-eaters  grew 


PRIMEVAL   MAN  247 

to  trust  to  speed  and  vigilance  for  their  safety 
there  was  no  longer  room  for  preying  beasts 
of  mere  prowess. 

In  South  America  it  is  probable  that  the 
heavy  fauna  died  out  much  later  than  in  North 
America  and  northern  Eurasia;  that  is,  it  died 
out  much  later  than  in  what  zoogeographers  call 
the  holarctic  realm.  During  most  of  the  Ter 
tiary  period  or  age  of  mammals,  the  period  in 
tervening  between  the  close  of  the  age  of  great 
reptiles  and  the  time  when  man  in  human  form 
appeared  on  the  planet,  South  America  was  an 
island,  and  its  faunal  history  was  as  distinct 
and  peculiar  as  that  of  Australia.  Aside  from 
marsupials  and  New  World  monkeys,  its  most 
characteristic  animals  were  edentates  and  very 
queer  ungulates  with  no  resemblance  to  those 
of  any  other  continent.  Toward  the  close  of 
the  Tertiary  land  bridges  connected  the  two 
Americas,  and  an  interchange  of  faunas  followed. 
The  South  American  fauna  was  immensely  en 
riched  by  the  incoming  of  elephants,  horses, 
sabretooth  cats,  true  cats,  camels,  bears,  tapirs, 
peccaries,  deer,  and  dogs,  all  of  which  developed 
along  new  and  individual  lines.  A  few  of  these 
species,  llamas  and  tapirs  for  instance,  still 
persist  in  South  America  although  they  have 
died  out  in  the  land  from  which  they  came. 


248     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

But  in  the  end,  and  also  for  unknown  causes, 
this  great  fauna  died  out  in  South  America 
likewise,  leaving  a  continent  faunistically  even 
more  impoverished  than  North  America.  The 
great  autochthonous  forms  shared  the  extinction 
of  the  big  creatures  of  the  immigrant  fauna; 
for  under  stress  of  competition  with  the  new 
comers,  the  ancient  ungulates  and  edentates 
had  developed  giants  of  their  own. 

Recent  discoveries  have  shown  that  the  ex 
tinction  was  not  complete  when  the  ancestors 
of  the  Indians  of  to-day  reached  the  southern 
Andes  and  the  Argentine  plains.  An  age  pre 
viously  the  forefathers  of  these  newcomers  had 
lived  in  a  land  with  the  wild  horse,  the  wild 
elephant,  and  the  lion;  and  now,  at  the  opposite 
end  of  the  world,  they  had  themselves  reached 
such  a  land.  The  elephants  were  mastodons  of 
peculiar  type;  the  horses  were  of  several  kinds, 
some  resembling  modern  horses,  others  differ 
ing  from  them  in  leg  and  skull  formation  more 
than  any  of  the  existing  species  of  ass,  horse, 
or  zebra  differ  from  one  another;  the  huge 
cats  probably  resembled  some  other  big  mod 
ern  feline  more  than  they  did  the  lion.  As 
sociated  with  them  were  many  great  beasts, 
whose  like  does  not  now  exist  on  earth.  The 
sabretooth  was  there,  as  formidable  as  his 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  249 

brother  of  the  north,  and,  like  this  brother,  big 
ger  and  more  specialized  than  any  of  his  Old 
World  kin,  which  were  probably  already  extinct. 
Among  the  ungulates  of  native  origin  was 
the  long-necked,  high-standing  macrauchenia, 
shaped  something  like  a  huge,  humpless  camel 
or  giraffe,  and  with  a  short  proboscis.  This 
animal  doubtless  browsed  among  the  trees. 
Another  native  ungulate,  the  toxodon,  as  big 
and  heavily  made  as  a  rhinoceros,  was  probably 
amphibious,  and  had  teeth  superficially  resem 
bling  those  of  a  rodent.  The  edentates  not  only 
included  various  ground-sloths,  among  them  the 
megatherium,  which  was  the  size  of  an  elephant, 
and  the  somewhat  smaller  mylodon,  but  also 
creatures  as  fantastic  as  those  of  a  nightmare. 
These  were  the  glyptodons,  which  were  bulkier 
than  oxen  and  were  clad  in  defensive  plate- 
armor  more  complete  than  that  of  an  armadillo; 
in  one  species  the  long,  armored  tail  terminated 
in  a  huge  spiked  knob,  like  that  of  some  forms 
of  mediseval  mace. 

The  glyptodons  doubtless  trusted  for  pro 
tection  to  their  mailed  coats.  The  ground- 
sloths  had  no  armor.  Like  the  terrestrial  ant- 
bear  of  Brazil  they  walked  slowly  on  the  outer 
edges  of  their  fore  feet,  which  were  armed  with 
long  and  powerful  digging  claws.  They  could 


250     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

neither  flee  nor  hide;  and  it  seems  a  marvel 
that  they  could  have  held  their  own  in  the 
land  against  the  big  cats  and  sabretooth.  Yet 
they  persisted  for  ages,  and  spread  northward 
from  South  America.  It  is  hard  to  account  for 
this.  But  it  is  just  as  hard  to  account  for  cer 
tain  phenomena  that  are  occurring  before  our 
very  eyes.  While  journeying  through  the  in 
terior  of  Brazil  I  not  infrequently  came  across 
the  big  tamandua,  the  ant-bear  or  ant-eater. 
We  found  it  not  only  in  the  forests  but  out  on 
the  marshes  and  prairies.  It  is  almost  as  big 
as  a  small  black  bear.  In  its  native  haunts  it 
is  very  conspicuous,  both  because  of  its  size 
and  its  coloration,  and  as  it  never  attempts  to 
hide  it  is  always  easily  seen.  It  is  so  slow  that 
a  man  can  run  it  down  on  foot.  It  has  no  teeth, 
and  its  long,  curved  snout  gives  its  small  head 
an  almost  bird-like  look.  Its  fore  paws,  armed 
with  long,  digging  claws,  are  turned  in,  and  it 
walks  on  their  sides.  It  is  long-haired  and 
thick-hided,  colored  black  and  white,  and  with 
a  long,  bushy  tail  held  aloft;  and  as  it  retreats 
at  a  wabbly  canter,  its  brush  shaking  above 
its  back,  it  looks  anything  but  formidable. 
Yet  it  is  a  gallant  fighter,  and  can  inflict  severe 
wounds  with  its  claws,  as  well  as  hugging  with 
its  powerful  fore  legs;  and  if  menaced  it  will 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  251 

itself  fearlessly  assail  man  or  dog.  When 
chased  by  hounds,  in  the  open,  I  have  seen  one 
instantly  throw  itself  on  its  back,  in  which 
position  it  was  much  more  dangerous  to  the 
hounds  than  they  were  to  it.  Doubtless  if  at 
tacked  by  a  jaguar  —  and  we  killed  jaguars  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  -  -  it  would,  if 
given  a  moment's  warning,  have  defended  it 
self  in  the  same  fashion.  I  suppose  that  this 
defense  would  be  successful;  for  otherwise  it 
seems  incredible  that  such  a  conspicuous,  slow- 
moving  beast  can  exist  at  all  in  exactly  the 
places  where  jaguars,  able  to  kill  a  cow  or 
horse,  are  plentiful.  But,  even  so,  it  is  difficult 
to  understand  how  it  has  been  able  to  persist 
for  ages  in  company  with  the  great  spotted 
cat,  the  tyrant  of  the  Brazilian  wilderness. 
At  any  rate,  with  this  example  before  us,  we 
need  not  wonder  overmuch  at  the  ability  of 
megatherium  and  mylodon  to  hold  their  own 
in  the  presence  of  the  sab  re  tooth. 

In  the  late  fall  of  1913,  as  previously  de- 
cribed,  I  motored  north  from  the  beautiful 
Andean  lake,  Nahuel  Huapi,  through  the  stony 
Patagonian  plains  to  the  Rio  Negro.  The  only 
wild  things  of  any  size  that  we  saw  were  the 
rheas,  or  South  American  ostriches,  and  a 
couple  of  guanacos,  or  wild  llamas,  small,  swift, 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

humpless  camels,  of  which  the  ancestral  forms 
were  abundant  in  the  North  American  Miocene. 
But  one  of  my  companions,  the  distinguished 
Argentine  explorer,  educator,  and  man  of 
science,  Francisco  Moreno,  had  some  years  pre 
viously  made  a  discovery  which  showed  that 
not  many  thousand  years  back,  when  the  In 
dians  had  already  come  into  the  land,  the  huge 
and  varied  fauna  of  the  Pleistocene  still  lingered 
at  the  foot  of  the  Andes.  He  had  found  a  cave 
in  which  savage  men  had  dwelt ;  and  in  the  cave 
were  the  remains  of  the  animals  which  they 
had  killed,  or  which  had  entered  the  cave  at 
times  when  its  human  tenants  were  absent.  Be 
sides  the  weapons  and  utensils  of  the  savages, 
he  had  found  the  grass  which  they  had  used  for 
beds,  and  enclosures  walled  with  stones  for  pur 
poses  of  which  he  could  not  be  sure.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  in  the  cave-home  of  the 
'Ndorobo  which  Kermit  found  there  were  beds 
of  grass,  and  enclosures  walled  with  brush,  in 
which  their  dogs  were  kept.  Whether  these 
early  Patagonian  Indians  had  dogs  I  do  not 
know;  but  many  African  tribes  build  low  stone 
walls  as  foundations  for  sheds  used  for  different 
purposes;  and  sometimes,  among  savages,  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  to  guess  the  use  to  which 
a  given  structure  is  put  unless  it  is  actually  seen 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  253 

in  use  —  exactly  as  sometimes  it  is  wholly  im 
possible  to  divine  what  a  particular  specimen  of 
savage  pictorial  art  indicates  unless  the  savage 
is  there  to  explain  it  to  his  civilized  brother. 

Among  the  signs  of  human  occupation  Doc 
tor  Moreno  found,  well  preserved  in  the  cold 
cave,  not  only  the  almost  fresh  bones,  but  even 
pieces  of  the  skin,  of  certain  extinct  animals. 
Among  the  species  whose  bones  were  found 
were  the  macrauchenia,  tiger,  horse,  and  my- 
lodon.  When  Doctor  Moreno  said  tiger,  I 
asked  if  he  did  not  mean  jaguar;  but  he  said 
no,  that  he  meant  a  huge  cat  like  an  Old  World 
lion  or  tiger;  I  do  not  know  with  what  modern 
feline  its  affinities  were  closest.  The  discovery 
of  the  comparatively  fresh  remains  of  the  horse 
gave  rise  in  some  quarters  to  the  belief  that  it 
was  possible  this  species  of  horse  survived  to 
the  day  the  Spaniards  came  to  the  Argentine 
and  was  partly  ancestral  to  the  modern  Argen 
tine  horse;  but  the  supposition  is  untenable,  for 
the  horse  in  question  represents  a  very  archaic 
and  peculiar  type,  with  specialized  legs  and  an 
extraordinary  skull,  and  could  not  possibly 
have  had  anything  to  do  with  the  production 
of  the  wild,  or  rather  feral,  horses  of  the  pam 
pas  and  the  Patagonian  plains.  Of  the  my- 
lodon  Doctor  Moreno  found  not  only  com- 


254     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

paratively  fresh  bones,  with  bits  of  sinew,  but 
dried  dung  —  almost  as  large  as  that  of  an 
elephant -- and  some  big  pieces  of  skin.  The 
skin  was  clothed  with  long,  coarse  hair,  and 
small  ossicles  were  set  into  it,  making  minute 
bony  plates.  Doctor  Moreno  gave  me  a  frag 
ment  of  the  skin,  and  also  bones  and  dung; 
they  are  now  in  the  American  Museum  of  Nat 
ural  History.  The  discovery  gave  rise  to  much 
fanciful  conjecture;  it  was  even  said  that  the 
mylodon  had  been  domesticated  and  kept  tame 
in  the  caves;  but  Doctor  Moreno  laughed  at 
the  supposition  and  said  that  it  lacked  any 
foundation  in  fact.  He  also  said  that,  con 
trary  to  what  has  sometimes  been  asserted, 
the  age  of  the  remains  must  be  estimated  in 
thousands,  possibly  ten  thousands,  and  cer 
tainly  not  hundreds,  of  years. 

There  is  no  need  of  fanciful  guesswork  in 
order  to  enhance  the  startling  character  of  the 
discovery.  It  seems  to  show  beyond  question 
that  the  early  hunting  savages  of  southernmost 
South  America  lived  among  the  representatives 
of  a  huge  fauna,  now  wholly  extinct,  just  as 
was  true  of  the  earlier,  and  far  more  primitive, 
hunting  savages  of  Europe. 

Save  in  tropical  Africa  and  in  portions  of 
hither  and  farther  India  this  giant  fauna  has 


PRIMEVAL   MAN  255 

now  everywhere  died  out.  In  most  regions, 
and  in  the  earlier  stages,  man  had  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  its  destruction.  But  during 
the  last  few  thousand  years  he  has  been  the 
chief  factor  in  the  extermination  of  the  great 
creatures  wherever  he  has  established  an  in 
dustrial  or  agricultural  civilization  or  semi- 
civilization.  The  big  cat  he  has  warred  against 
in  self-defense.  The  elephant  in  India  has  been 
kept  tame  or  half  tame.  The  Old  World  horse 
has  been  tamed  and  transplanted  to  every  por 
tion  of  the  temperate  zones,  and  to  the  dry  or 
treeless  portions  of  the  torrid  zone. 

Around  the  Mediterranean,  the  cradle  of  the 
ancient  culture  of  our  race,  we  have  historic 
record  of  the  process.  Over  three  thousand 
years  ago  the  Egyptian  and  Mesopotamian 
kings  hunted  the  elephant  in  Syria.  A  thou 
sand  years  later  the  elephant  was  a  beast  of 
war  in  the  armies  of  the  Greeks,  the  Carthagin 
ians,  and  the  Romans.  Twenty-five  hundred 
years  ago  the  lion  was  a  dreaded  beast  of  ravin 
in  the  Balkan  Peninsula  and  Palestine,  as  he 
was  a  hundred  years  ago  in  North  Africa;  now 
he  is  to  be  found  south  of  the  Atlas,  or,  nearing 
extinction,  east  of  the  Euphrates.  Seemingly 
the  horse  was  tamed  long  after  the  more  homely 
beasts,  the  cattle,  swine,  goats,  and  sheep.  He 


256     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

was  not  a  beast  for  peaceful  uses;  he  was  the 
war-horse,  whose  neck  was  clothed  with  thun 
der,  who  pawed  the  earth  when  he  heard  the 
shouting  of  the  captains.  At  first  he  was  used 
not  for  riding,  but  to  draw  the  war  chariots. 
Rameses  and  the  Hittites  decided  their  great 
battles  by  chariot  charges;  the  mighty  and 
cruel  Assyrian  kings  rode  to  war  and  hunting 
in  chariots;  the  Homeric  Greeks  fought  in 
chariots ;  Sisera  ruled  the  land  with  his  chariots 
of  iron ;  and  long  after  they  had  been  abandoned 
elsewhere  war  chariots  were  used  by  the  cham 
pions  of  Erin.  Cavalry  did  not  begin  to  super 
sede  them  until  less  than  a  thousand  years  before 
our  era;  and  from  that  time  until  gunpowder 
marked  the  beginning  of  the  modern  era  the 
horse  decided  half  the  great  battles  of  history. 

But  with  this  process  primitive  man  had 
nothing  to  do.  He  was  and,  in  the  few  remote 
spots  where  he  still  exists  unchanged,  he  is 
wholly  unable  even  to  conceive  of  systematic 
war  against  the  lion,  or  of  trying  to  tame  the 
horse  or  elephant.  These  three,  alone  among 
the  big  beasts  of  the  giant  fauna  in  which  the 
age  of  mammals  had  culminated,  once  throve 
in  vast  numbers  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
and  the  valley  of  the  Nile  northward  to  the 
Rhone  and  the  Danube,  eastward  across  India 


PRIMEVAL  MAN  257 

and  Siberia,  and  from  Hudson  Bay  to  the 
Straits  of  Magellan.  They  were  dominant 
figures  in  the  life  of  all  the  five  continents  when 
primitive  man  had  struggled  upward  from  the 
plane  of  his  ape-like  ancestors  and  had  become 
clearly  human.  For  ages  he  was  too  feeble  to 
be  as  much  of  a  factor  in  their  lives  as  they  were 
in  the  lives  of  one  another;  and  in  North  Amer 
ica  he  never  became  such  a  factor.  The  great 
man-killing  cat  was  his  dreaded  enemy,  to  be 
fought  only  under  the  strain  of  direst  need. 
The  horse  became  a  favorite  prey  when  he 
grew  cunning  enough  to  devise  snares  and 
weapons.  The  elephant  he  feared  and  respected 
for  its  power  and  occasional  truculence,  and 
endeavored  to  destroy  on  the  infrequent  oc 
casions  when  chance  gave  an  opening  to  his 
own  crafty  ferocity. 

All  this  is  true,  at  the  present  day,  in  por 
tions  of  mid-Africa.  I  have  been  with  tribes 
whom  only  fear  or  imminent  starvation  could 
drive  to  attack  the  lion;  and  I  have  seen  the 
naked  warriors  of  the  Nandi  kill  the  great, 
maned  manslayer  with  their  spears.  Again 
and  again,  as  an  offering  of  peace  and  good 
will,  I  have  shot  zebras  for  natives  who  greed 
ily  longed  for  its  flesh.  My  son  and  I  killed  a 
rogue  elephant  bull  at  the  earnest  petition  of  a 


258     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

small  Uganda  tribe  whose  crops  he  had  de 
stroyed,  whose  field  watchers  he  had  killed, 
and  whose  village  he  menaced  with  destruction. 
Of  all  the  wonderful  great  beasts  with  which 
primitive  man  in  his  most  primitive  forms  has 
been  associated,  the  three  with  which  on  the 
whole  this  association  was  most  wide-spread  in 
time  and  space,  were  the  horse,  the  lion,  and  the 
elephant. 


CHAPTER  IX 
BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  IN  THE  OPEN 

I  AM  sometimes  asked  what  books  I  advise 
men  or  women  to  take  on  holidays  in  the 
open.  With  the  reservation  of  long  trips, 
where  bulk  is  of  prime  consequence,  I  can  only 
answer:  The  same  books  one  would  read  at 
home.  Such  an  answer  generally  invites  the 
further  question  as  to  what  books  I  read  when 
at  home.  To  this  question  I  am  afraid  my 
answer  cannot  be  so  instructive  as  it  ought  to 
be,  for  I  have  never  followed  any  plan  in  read 
ing  which  would  apply  to  all  persons  under  all 
circumstances;  and  indeed  it  seems  to  me  that 
no  plan  can  be  laid  down  that  will  be  generally 
applicable.  If  a  man  is  not  fond  of  books,  to 
him  reading  of  any  kind  will  be  drudgery.  I 
most  sincerely  commiserate  such  a  person,  but 
I  do  not  know  how  to  help  him.  If  a  man  or  a 
woman  is  fond  of  books  he  or  she  will  naturally 
seek  the  books  that  the  mind  and  soul  demand. 
Suggestions  of  a  possibly  helpful  character  can 
be  made  by  outsiders,  but  only  suggestions; 

259 


260     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  they  will  probably  be  helpful  about  in  pro 
portion  to  the  outsider's  knowledge  of  the  mind 
and  soul  of  the  person  to  be  helped. 

Of  course,  if  any  one  finds  that  he  never  reads 
serious  literature,  if  all  his  reading  is  frothy  and 
trashy,  he  would  do  well  to  try  to  train  him 
self  to  like  books  that  the  general  agreement 
of  cultivated  and  sound-thinking  persons  has 
placed  among  the  classics.  It  is  as  discreditable 
to  the  mind  to  be  unfit  for  sustained  mental 
effort  as  it  is  to  the  body  of  a  young  man  to  be 
unfit  for  sustained  physical  effort.  Let  man  or 
woman,  young  man  or  girl,  read  some  good 
author,  say  Gibbon  or  Macaulay,  until  sus 
tained  mental  effort  brings  power  to  enjoy  the 
books  worth  enjoying.  When  this  has  been 
achieved  the  man  can  soon  trust  himself  to 
pick  out  for  himself  the  particular  good  books 
which  appeal  to  him. 

The  equation  of  personal  taste  is  as  powerful 
in  reading  as  in  eating;  and  within  certain 
broad  limits  the  matter  is  merely  one  of  individ 
ual  preference,  having  nothing  to  do  with  the 
quality  either  of  the  book  or  of  the  reader's 
mind.  I  like  apples,  pears,  oranges,  pineapples, 
and  peaches.  I  dislike  bananas,  alligator-pears, 
and  prunes.  The  first  fact  is  certainly  not  to 
my  credit,  although  it  is  to  my  advantage; 


BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS 

and  the  second  at  least  does  not  show  moral 
turpitude.  At  times  in  the  tropics  I  have  been 
exceedingly  sorry  I  could  not  learn  to  like 
bananas,  and  on  round-ups,  in  the  cow  country 
in  the  old  days,  it  was  even  more  unfortunate 
not  to  like  prunes;  but  I  simply  could  not  make 
myself  like  either,  and  that  was  all  there  was 
to  it. 

In  the  same  way  I  read  over  and  over  again 
"Guy  Mannering,"  "The  Antiquary,"  "Pen- 
dennis,"  "Vanity  Fair,"  "Our  Mutual  Friend," 
and  the  "Pickwick  Papers";  whereas  I  make 
heavy  weather  of  most  parts  of  the  "Fortunes 
of  Nigel,"  "Esmond,"  and  the  "Old  Curiosity 
Shop"  -  to  mention  only  books  I  have  tried  to 
read  during  the  last  month.  I  have  no  question 
that  the  latter  three  books  are  as  good  as  the 
first  six;  doubtless  for  some  people  they  are 
better;  but  I  do  not  like  them,  any  more  than 
I  like  prunes  or  bananas. 

In  the  same  way  I  read  and  reread  "Mac 
beth"  and  "Othello";  but  not  "King  Lear" 
nor  "Hamlet."  I  know  perfectly  well  that  the 
latter  are  as  wonderful  as  the  former  —  I 
wouldn't  venture  to  admit  my  shortcomings 
regarding  them  if  I  couldn't  proudly  express 
my  appreciation  of  the  other  two!  But  at  my 
age  I  might  as  well  own  up,  at  least  to  myself, 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

to  my  limitations,  and  read  the  books  I  thor 
oughly  enjoy. 

But  this  does  not  mean  permitting  oneself  to 
like  what  is  vicious  or  even  simply  worthless. 
If  any  man  finds  that  he  cares  to  read  "Bel 
Ami,"  he  will  do  well  to  keep  a  watch  on  the 
reflex  centres  of  his  moral  nature,  and  to  brace 
himself  with  a  course  of  Eugene  Brieux  or 
Henry  Bordeaux.  If  he  does  not  care  for 
"Anna  Karenina,"  "War  and  Peace,"  "Sebas- 
topol,"  and  "The  Cossacks"  he  misses  much; 
but  if  he  cares  for  the  "Kreutzer  Sonata"  he 
had  better  make  up  his  mind  that  for  patho 
logical  reasons  he  will  be  wise  thereafter  to 
avoid  Tolstoy  entirely.  Tolstoy  is  an  interest 
ing  and  stimulating  writer,  but  an  exceedingly 
unsafe  moral  adviser. 

It  is  clear  that  the  reading  of  vicious  books 
for  pleasure  should  be  eliminated.  It  is  no  less 
clear  that  trivial  and  vulgar  books  do  more 
damage  than  can  possibly  be  offset  by  any 
entertainment  they  yield.  There  remain  enor 
mous  masses  of  books,  of  which  no  one  man 
can  read  more  than  a  limited  number,  and 
among  which  each  reader  should  choose  those 
which  meet  his  own  particular  needs.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  list  of  "the  hundred  best 
books,"  or  the  "best  five-foot  library." 


BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  263 

Dozens  of  series  of  excellent  books,  one  hun 
dred  to  each  series,  can  be  named,  all  of  reason 
ably  equal  merit  and  each  better  for  many 
readers  than  any  of  the  others;  and  probably 
not  more  than  half  a  dozen  books  would  appear 
in  all  these  lists.  As  for  a  "five-foot  library," 
scores  can  readily  be  devised,  each  of  which  at 
some  given  time,  for  some  given  man,  under 
certain  conditions,  will  be  best.  But  to  at 
tempt  to  create  such  a  library  that  shall  be  of 
universal  value  is  foreordained  to  futility. 

Within  broad  limits,  therefore,  the  reader's 
personal  and  individual  taste  must  be  the  guid 
ing  factor.  I  like  hunting  books  and  books  of 
exploration  and  adventure.  I  do  not  ask  any 
one  else  to  like  them.  I  distinctly  do  not  hold 
my  own  preferences  as  anything  whatever  but 
individual  preferences;  and  this  chapter  is  to  be 
accepted  as  confessional  rather  than  didactic. 
With  this  understanding  I  admit  a  liking  for 
novels  where  something  happens;  and  even 
among  these  novels  I  can  neither  explain  nor 
justify  why  I  like  some  and  do  not  like  others; 
why,  among  the  novels  of  Sienkiewicz,  I  can 
not  stand  "Quo  Vadis,"  and  never  tire  of  "With 
Fire  and  Sword,"  "Pan  Michael,"  the  "Del 
uge"  and  the  "Knights  of  the  Cross." 

Of  course,  I  know  that  the  best  critics  scorn 


264     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

the  demand  among  novel  readers  for  "the 
happy  ending."  Now,  in  really  great  books  —  in 
an  epic  like  Milton's,  in  dramas  like  those  of 
^Eschylus  and  Sophocles  —  I  am  entirely  willing 
to  accept  and  even  demand  tragedy,  and  also 
in  some  poetry  that  cannot  be  called  great,  but 
not  in  good,  readable  novels,  of  sufficient  length 
to  enable  me  to  get  interested  in  the  hero  and 
heroine ! 

There  is  enough  of  horror  and  grimness  and 
sordid  squalor  in  real  life  with  which  an  active 
man  has  to  grapple;  and  when  I  turn  to  the 
world  of  literature  —  of  books  considered  as 
books,  and  not  as  instruments  of  my  profession 
- 1  do  not  care  to  study  suffering  unless  for 
some  sufficient  purpose.  It  is  only  a  very  ex 
ceptional  novel  which  I  will  read  if  He  does  not 
marry  Her;  and  even  in  exceptional  novels  I 
much  prefer  this  consummation.  I  am  not  de 
fending  my  attitude.  I  am  merely  stating  it. 

Therefore  it  would  be  quite  useless  for  me  to 
try  to  explain  why  I  read  certain  books.  As  to 
how  and  when,  my  answers  must  be  only  less 
vague.  I  almost  always  read  a  good  deal  in  the 
evening;  and  if  the  rest  of  the  evening  is  oc 
cupied  I  can  at  least  get  half  an  hour  before 
going  to  bed.  But  all  kinds  of  odd  moments 
turn  up  during  even  a  busy  day,  in  which  it  is 


BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  265 

possible  to  enjoy  a  book;  and  then  there  are 
rainy  afternoons  in  the  country  in  autumn,  and 
stormy  days  in  winter,  when  one's  work  out 
doors  is  finished  and  after  wet  clothes  have 
been  changed  for  dry,  the  rocking-chair  in  front 
of  the  open  wood-fire  simply  demands  an  ac 
companying  book. 

Railway  and  steamboat  journeys  were,  of 
course,  predestined  through  the  ages  as  aids  to 
the  enjoyment  of  reading.  I  have  always  taken 
books  with  me  when  on  hunting  and  exploring 
trips.  In  such  cases  the  literature  should  be 
reasonably  heavy,  in  order  that  it  may  last. 
You  can  under  these  conditions  read  Herbert 
Spencer,  for  example,  or  the  writings  of  Turgot, 
or  a  German  study  of  the  Mongols,  or  even  a 
German  edition  of  Aristophanes,  with  erudite 
explanations  of  the  jokes,  as  you  never  would 
if  surrounded  by  less  formidable  authors  in 
your  own  library;  and  when  you  do  reach  the 
journey's  end  you  grasp  with  eager  appetite  at 
old  magazines,  or  at  the  lightest  of  literature. 

Then,  if  one  is  worried  by  all  kinds  of  men 
and  events  —  during  critical  periods  in  adminis 
trative  office,  or  at  national  conventions,  or 
during  congressional  investigations,  or  in  hard- 
fought  political  campaigns -- it  is  the  greatest 
relief  and  unalloyed  delight  to  take  up  some 


266     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

really  good,  some  really  enthralling  book  — 
Tacitus,  Thucydides,  Herodotus,  Polybius,  or 
Goethe,  Keats,  Gray,  or  Lowell  —  and  lose  all 
memory  of  everything  grimy,  and  of  the  base 
ness  that  must  be  parried  or  conquered. 

Like  every  one  else,  I  am  apt  to  read  in 
streaks.  If  I  get  interested  in  any  subject  I 
read  different  books  connected  with  it,  and 
probably  also  read  books  on  subjects  suggested 
by  it.  Having  read  Carlyle's  "Frederick  the 
Great"  -  with  its  splendid  description  of  the  bat 
tles,  and  of  the  unyielding  courage  and  thrifty 
resourcefulness  of  the  iron-tempered  King;  and 
with  its  screaming  deification  of  able  brutality 
in  the  name  of  morality,  and  its  practise  of  the 
suppression  and  falsification  of  the  truth  under 
the  pretense  of  preaching  veracity  —  I  turned 
to  Macaulay's  essay  on  this  subject,  and  found 
that  the  historian  whom  it  has  been  the  fashion 
of  the  intellectuals  to  patronize  or  deride 
showed  a  much  sounder  philosophy ,  and  an  in 
finitely  greater  appreciation  of  and  devotion 
to  truth  than  was  shown  by  the  loquacious 
apostle  of  the  doctrine  of  reticence. 

Then  I  took  up  Waddington's  "Guerre  de 
Sept  Ans";  then  I  read  all  I  could  about  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus;  and,  gradually  dropping  every 
thing  but  the  military  side,  I  got  hold  of  quaint 


BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  267 

little  old  histories  of  Eugene  of  Savoy  and 
Turenne.  In  similar  fashion  my  study  of  and 
delight  in  Mahan  sent  me  further  afield,  to  read 
queer  old  volumes  about  De  Ruyter  and  the  dar 
ing  warrior-merchants  of  the  Hansa,  and  to 
study,  as  well  as  I  could,  the  feats  of  Suffren 
and  Tegethoff.  I  did  not  need  to  study  Farra- 
gut. 

Mahaffy's  books  started  me  to  reread  —  in 
translation,  alas! --the  post-Athenian  Greek 
authors.  After  Ferrero  I  did  the  same  thing  as 
regards  the  Latin  authors,  and  then  industri 
ously  read  all  kinds  of  modern  writers  on  the 
same  period,  finishing  with  Oman's  capital  es 
say  on  "Seven  Roman  Statesmen."  Gilbert 
Murray  brought  me  back  from  Greek  history  to 
Greek  literature,  and  thence  by  a  natural  sug 
gestion  to  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  to  the 
Nibelungenlied,  to  the  Roland  lay  and  the 
chansons  de  gestes,  to  Beowulf,  and  finally  to 
the  great  Japanese  hero-tale,  the  story  of  the 
Forty-Nine  Ronins. 

I  read  Burroughs  too  often  to  have  him  sug 
gest  anything  save  himself;  but  I  am  exceed 
ingly  glad  that  Charles  Sheldon  has  arisen  to 
show  what  a  hunter-naturalist,  who  adds  the 
ability  of  the  writer  to  the  ability  of  the  trained 
observer  and  outdoor  adventurer,  can  do  for 


268     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

our  last  great  wilderness,  Alaska.  From  Shel 
don  I  turned  to  Stewart  Edward  White,  and 
then  began  to  wander  afar,  with  Herbert  Ward's 
" Voice  from  the  Congo,"  and  Mary  Kingsley's 
writings,  and  Hudson's  "El  Ornbu,"  and  Cun 
ningham  Grahame's  sketches  of  South  America. 
A  re-reading  of  The  Federalist  led  me  to  Burke, 
to  Trevelyan's  history  of  Fox  and  of  our  own 
Revolution,  to  Lecky;  and  finally  by  way  of 
Malthus  and  Adam  Smith  and  Lord  Acton  and 
Bagehot  to  my  own  contemporaries,  to  Ross 
and  George  Alger. 

Even  in  pure  literature,  having  nothing  to  do 
with  history,  philosophy,  sociology,  or  economy, 
one  book  will  often  suggest  another,  so  that  one 
finds  one  has  unconsciously  followed  a  regular 
course  of  reading.  Once  I  travelled  steadily 
from  Montaigne  through  Addison,  Swift,  Steele, 
Lamb,  Irving,  and  Lowell  to  Crothers  and 
Kenneth  Grahame  —  and  if  it  be  objected  that 
some  of  these  could  not  have  suggested  the  others 
I  can  only  answer  that  they  did  suggest  them. 

I  suppose  that  every  one  passes  through 
periods  during  which  he  reads  no  poetry;  and 
some  people,  of  whom  I  am  one,  also  pass 
through  periods  during  which  they  voraciously 
devour  poets  of  widely  different  kinds.  Now 
it  will  be  Horace  and  Pope;  now  Schiller,  Scott, 


BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  269 

Longfellow,  Korner;  now  Bret  Harte  or  Kip 
ling;  now  Shelley  or  Herrick  or  Tennyson; 
now  Poe  and  Coleridge;  and  again  Emerson  or 
Browning  or  Whitman.  Sometimes  one  wishes 
to  read  for  the  sake  of  contrast.  To  me  Owen 
Wister  is  the  writer  I  wish  when  I  am  hungry 
with  the  memories  of  lonely  mountains,  of  vast 
sunny  plains  with  seas  of  wind-rippled  grass,  of 
springing  wild  creatures,  and  lithe,  sun-tanned 
men  who  ride  with  utter  ease  on  ungroomed, 
half-broken  horses.  But  when  I  lived  much 
in  cow  camps  I  often  carried  a  volume  of  Swin 
burne,  as  a  kind  of  antiseptic  to  alkali  dust, 
tepid,  muddy  water,  frying-pan  bread,  sow-belly 
bacon,  and  the  too-infrequent  washing  of  sweat- 
drenched  clothing. 

Fathers  and  mothers  who  are  wise  can  train 
their  children  first  to  practise,  and  soon  to  like, 
the  sustained  mental  application  necessary  to 
enjoy  good  books.  They  will  do  well  also  to 
give  each  boy  or  girl  the  mastery  of  at  least 
some  one  foreign  language,  so  that  at  least  one 
other  great  literature,  in  addition  to  our  own 
noble  English  literature,  shall  be  open  to  him 
or  her.  Modern  languages  are  taught  so  easily 
and  readily  that  whoever  really  desires  to  learn 
one  of  them  can  soon  achieve  sufficient  com 
mand  of  it  to  read  ordinary  books  with  reason- 


270     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

able  ease;  and  then  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  prac 
tise  for  any  one  to  become  able  thoroughly  to 
enjoy  the  beauty  and  wisdom  which  knowledge 
of  the  new  tongue  brings. 

Now  and  then  one's  soul  thirsts  for  laughter. 
I  cannot  imagine  any  one's  taking  a  course  in 
humorous  writers,  but  just  as  little  can  I  sym 
pathize  with  the  man  who  does  not  enjoy  them 
at  times  —  from  Sydney  Smith  to  John  Phoenix 
and  Artemus  Ward,  and  from  these  to  Stephen 
Leacock.  Mark  Twain  at  his  best  stands  a 
little  apart,  almost  as  much  so  as  Joel  Chandler 
Harris.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  of  course,  is 
the  laughing  philosopher,  the  humorist  at  his 
very  highest,  even  if  we  use  the  word  "humor" 
only  in  its  most  modern  and  narrow  sense. 

A  man  with  a  real  fondness  for  books  of 
various  kinds  will  find  that  his  varying  moods 
determine  which  of  these  books  he  at  the  mo 
ment  needs.  On  the  afternoon  when  Stevenson 
represents  the  luxury  of  enjoyment  it  may 
safely  be  assumed  that  Gibbon  will  not.  The 
mood  that  is  met  by  Napier's  "  Peninsular 
War,"  or  Marbot's  memoirs,  will  certainly  not 
be  met  by  Hawthorne  or  Jane  Austen.  Park- 
man's  "Montcalm  and  Wolfe,"  Motley's  his 
tories  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  will  hardly  fill 
the  soul  on  a  day  when  one  turns  naturally  to 


BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  271 

the  "  Heimskringla  " ;  and  there  is  a  sense  of 
disconnection  if  after  the  "Heimskringla"  one 
takes  up  the  "Oxford  Book  of  French  Verse." 

Another  matter  which  within  certain  rather 
wide  limits  each  reader  must  settle  for  himself 
is  the  dividing  line  between  (1)  not  knowing 
anything  about  current  books,  and  (2)  swamp 
ing  one's  soul  in  the  sea  of  vapidity  which  over 
whelms  him  who  reads  only  "the  last  new 
books."  To  me  the  heading  employed  by  some 
reviewers  when  they  speak  of  "books  of  the 
week"  comprehensively  damns  both  the  books 
themselves  and  the  reviewer  who  is  willing  to 
notice  them.  I  would  much  rather  see  the 
heading  "books  of  the  year  before  last."  A 
book  of  the  year  before  last  which  is  still  worth 
noticing  would  probably  be  worth  reading; 
but  one  only  entitled  to  be  called  a  book  of  the 
week  had  better  be  tossed  into  the  waste- 
basket  at  once.  Still,  there  are  plenty  of  new 
books  which  are  not  of  permanent  value  but 
which  nevertheless  are  worth  more  or  less  care 
ful  reading;  partly  because  it  is  well  to  know 
something  of  what  especially  interests  the  mass 
of  our  fellows,  and  partly  because  these  books, 
although  of  ephemeral  worth,  may  really  set 
forth  something  genuine  in  a  fashion  which  for 
the  moment  stirs  the  hearts  of  all  of  us. 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

Books  of  more  permanent  value  may,  be 
cause  of  the  very  fact  that  they  possess  literary 
interest,  also  yield  consolation  of  a  non-literary 
kind.  If  any  executive  grows  exasperated  over 
the  shortcomings  of  the  legislative  body  with 
which  he  deals,  let  him  study  Macaulay's  ac 
count  of  the  way  William  was  treated  by  his 
parliaments  as  soon  as  the  latter  found  that, 
thanks  to  his  efforts,  they  were  no  longer  in 
immediate  danger  from  foreign  foes;  it  is  il 
luminating.  If  any  man  feels  too  gloomy  about 
the  degeneracy  of  our  people  from  the  stand 
ards  of  their  forefathers,  let  him  read  "Martin 
Chuzzlewit";  it  will  be  consoling. 

If  the  attitude  of  this  nation  toward  foreign 
affairs  and  military  preparedness  at  the  present 
day  seems  disheartening,  a  study  of  the  first 
fifteen  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  will  at 
any  rate  give  us  whatever  comfort  we  can  ex 
tract  from  the  fact  that  our  great-grandfathers 
were  no  less  foolish  than  we  are. 

Nor  need  any  one  confine  himself  solely  to 
the  affairs  of  the  United  States.  If  he  becomes 
tempted  to  idealize  the  past,  if  sentimentalists 
seek  to  persuade  him  that  the  "ages  of  faith," 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  for  in 
stance,  were  better  than  our  own,  let  him  read 
any  trustworthy  book  on  the  subject  —  Lea's 


BOOKS  FOR  HOLIDAYS  273 

"History  of  the  Inquisition,"  for  instance,  or 
Coulton's  abridgment  of  Salimbene's  mem 
oirs.  He  will  be  undeceived  and  will  be  de 
voutly  thankful  that  his  lot  has  been  cast  in 
the  present  age,  in  spite  of  all  its  faults. 

It  would  be  hopeless  to  try  to  enumerate  all 
the  books  I  read,  or  even  all  the  kinds.  The 
foregoing  is  a  very  imperfect  answer  to  a  ques 
tion  which  admits  of  only  such  an  answer. 


CHAPTER  X 

BIRD  RESERVES  AT  THE  MOUTH  OF  THE 
MISSISSIPPI 

ON  June  7,  1915,  I  was  the  guest  of  my 
friend  John  M.  Parker,  of  New  Orleans, 
at  his  house  at  Pass  Christian,  Missis 
sippi.  For  many  miles  west,  and  especially 
east,  of  Pass  Christian,  there  are  small  towns 
where  the  low,  comfortable,  singularly  pic 
turesque  and  attractive  houses  are  owned, 
some  by  Mississippi  planters,  some  by  city 
folk  who  come  hither  from  the  great  Southern 
cities,  and  more  and  more  in  winter-time  from 
the  great  Northern  cities  also,  to  pass  a  few 
months.  The  houses,  those  that  are  isolated 
and  those  in  the  little  towns,  stand  in  what 
is  really  one  long  row;  a  row  broken  by  va 
cant  reaches,  but  as  a  whole  stretching  for 
sixty  miles,  with  the  bright  waters  of  the  Gulf 
lapping  the  beach  in  front  of  them,  and  behind 
them  leagues  of  pine  forest.  Between  the  Gulf 
and  the  waters  lies  a  low  ridge  or  beach  of  white 
sand.  It  is  hard  to  make  anything  grow  in  this 

274 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      275 

sand;  but  the  owners  of  the  houses  have  suc 
ceeded,  using  dead  leaves  and  what  manure  is 
available;  and  in  this  leaf -mould  the  trees  and 
grasses  and  flowers  grow  in  profusion.  Long, 
flimsy  wooden  docks  stretch  out  into  the  waters 
of  the  Gulf;  there  is  not  much  bad  weather,  as 
a  rule,  but  every  few  years  there  comes  a  terrible 
storm  which  wrecks  buildings  and  bridges,  de 
stroys  human  lives  by  the  thousand,  washes 
the  small  Gulf  sailing  craft  ashore,  and  sweeps 
away  all  the  docks. 

Our  host's  house  was  cool  and  airy,  with 
broad,  covered  verandas,  and  mosquito  screens 
on  the  doors  and  the  big  windows.  The  trees 
in  front  were  live-oaks,  and  others  of  his  own 
planting  —  magnolias,  pecans,  palms,  and  a 
beautiful  mimosa.  The  blooming  oleanders 
and  hydrangeas  were  a  delight  to  the  eye.  Be 
hind,  the  place  stretched  like  a  long  ribbon  to 
the  edge  of  the  fragrant  pine  forest,  where  the 
long-leaved  and  loblolly  pines  rose  like  tall 
columns  out  of  the  needle-covered  sand.  Five 
pairs  of  mocking-birds  and  one  pair  of  thrashers 
had  just  finished  nesting;  at  dawn,  when  the 
crescent  of  the  dying  moon  had  risen  above  the 
growing  light  in  the  east,  the  mockers  sang 
wonderfully,  and  after  a  while  the  thrasher 
chimed  in.  Only  the  singing  of  nightingales 


276     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

where  they  are  plentiful,  as  in  some  Italian 
woods,  can  compare  in  strength  and  ecstasy 
and  passion,  in  volume  and  intricate  change 
and  continuity,  with  the  challenging  love-songs 
of  many  mockers,  rivalling  one  another,  as  they 
perch  and  balance  and  spring  upward  and  float 
downward  through  the  branches  of  live-oak  or 
magnolia,  after  sunset  and  before  sunrise,  and 
in  the  warm,  still,  brilliant  moonlight  of  spring 
and  early  summer. 

There  were  other  birds.  The  soldierly  look 
ing  red-headed  woodpeckers,  in  their  strik 
ing  black,  red,  and  white  uniform,  were  much 
in  evidence.  Gaudy  painted  finches,  or  "non 
pareils,"  were  less  conspicuous  only  because  of 
their  small  size.  Blue  jays  had  raised  their 
young  in  front  of  the  house,  and,  as  I  was  in 
formed,  had  been  successfully  beaten  off  by  the 
mockers  and  thrashers  when  they  attempted 
assaults  on  the  eggs  and  nestlings  of  the  latter. 
Purple  martins  darted  through  the  air.  King 
birds  chased  the  big  grackles  and  the  numerous 
small  fish-crows  —  not  so  very  much  bigger  than 
the  grackles  —  which  uttered  queer,  hoarse 
croakings.  A  pair  of  crested  flycatchers  had 
their  nest  in  a  hollow  in  a  tree;  the  five  boldly 
marked  eggs  rested,  as  usual,  partly  on  a  shed 
snake  skin.  How,  I  wonder,  through  the  im- 


THE   MISSISSIPPI   RESERVES      277 

memorial  ages,  and  why,  did  this  particular 
bird  develop  its  strange  determination  always, 
where  possible,  to  use  a  snake's  cast-off  skin  in 
building  its  nest?  Every  season,  I  was  told, 
this  flycatcher  nested  in  the  same  hollow;  and 
every  season  the  hollow  was  previously  nested 
in  by  a  tufted  titmouse.  Loggerhead  shrikes 
were  plentiful.  Insects  were  their  usual  food, 
but  they  also  pounced  on  small  birds,  mice, 
and  lizards,  and  once  on  a  little  chicken.  They 
empale  their  prey  on  locust  thorns  and  on  the 
spines  of  other  trees  and  bushes;  and  I  have 
known  a  barbed-wire  fence  to  be  decorated 
with  the  remains  of  their  victims.  There  were 
red  cardinal-birds ;  and  we  saw  another  red  bird 
also,  a  summer  tanager. 

But  the  most  interesting  birds  on  the  place 
were  not  wild,  being  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
ordinary  fowls  engaged  in  what  to  me  were  most 
unordinary  occupations.  Parker  had  several 
hundred  fowls,  and  had  by  trial  discovered  the 
truth  of  the  statement  that  capons  make  far 
better  mothers  than  do  hens,  especially  for  very 
young  chicks.  We  saw  dozens  of  broods  of 
chickens,  and  one  or  two  of  young  guinea- 
fowl,  being  taken  care  of  by  caponized  ban 
tams,  game-cocks,  and  cochin-chinas.  These 
improvised  mothers  looked  almost  precisely  as 


278     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

they  did  before  being  caponized,  the  differences, 
chiefly  in  the  color  of  the  comb,  being  insignif 
icant,  for  they  were  full-grown  birds  when 
operated  on.  But  their  natures  had  suffered 
the  most  extraordinary  change,  for  they  had 
developed  not  only  the  habits  but  the  voices 
of  unusually  exemplary  mother  hens.  They 
never  crowed;  they  clucked  precisely  like  hens; 
and  they  protected,  covered,  fed,  and  led  about 
their  broods  just  like  hens.  They  were  timid, 
except  in  defense  of  the  chicks;  but  on  their 
behalf  they  were  really  formidable  fighters. 
The  change  in  habits  takes  place  with  extraor 
dinary  rapidity.  In  a  few  hours  the  cock  has 
completely  changed  and  can  be  placed  with  a 
brood  which  he  promptly  adopts.  In  perhaps 
one  case  in  ten  he  does  not  take  readily  to  his 
duties  as  an  ex-qfficio  hen;  and  in  such  case  the 
further  measure  adopted  seems  as  incredible  as 
the  rest  of  the  performance,  for  he  is  made 
drunk  with  whiskey,  acts  as  if  he  were  in 
toxicated,  and  then  promptly  develops  maternal 
feelings,  and  zealously  enters  on  his  new  career. 
We  saw  game-cocks  clucking  and  calling  to 
their  broods  of  little  chicks,  to  get  them  to  the 
crumbs  we  tossed  to  them,  and  then  sitting 
with  the  chicks  not  only  under  their  wings  but 
on  their  backs.  They  kept  the  broods  with 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      279 

them  until  the  young  were  nearly  as  large  as 
they  were;  in  one  case  the  brood  consisted  of 
guinea-fowl.  Moreover,  they  welcomed  any 
brood,  no  matter  how  large.  One  big  rooster 
was  leading  around  so  many  chickens  —  all, 
by  what  seemed  a  sardonic  jest,  his  own  prog 
eny,  the  progeny  of  the  days  when  he  was  a 
mere  unregenerate  father --that  when  they 
took  shelter  under  him  he  had  to  spread  his 
wings;  "like  a  buzzard,"  said  my  host,  to  whom 
soaring  buzzards  were  familiar  sights.  Of  course, 
the  extraordinary  part  of  all  this  was  not  the 
loss  of  the  male  qualities  but  the  immediate 
and  complete  acquirement  of  those  of  the 
female.  It  was  as  if  steers  invariably  took  to 
mothering  calves,  or  geldings  to  adopting  foals. 
These  capon-mothers,  with  their  weight  and 
long  spurs,  fought  formidably  for  their  chicks. 
In  one  case  a  Cooper's  hawk  swooped  on  a 
half-grown  chick,  whereupon  the  game-cock 
who  was  officiating  as  hen  flew  at  the  aggressor, 
striking  it  so  hard  as  to  injure  the  top  of  the 
wing.  The  hawk  was  unable  to  fly,  and  the 
cock  pressed  it  too  close  to  let  it  escape.  Al 
though  the  rooster  could  not  kill  the  hawk,  for 
the  latter  threw  itself  on  its  back  with  ex 
tended  talons,  he  had  rendered  it  unable  to 
escape,  and  one  of  the  men  about  the  place 


280     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

came  up  and  killed  it,  having  been  attracted 
by  the  noise  of  the  fight.  Another  cock  killed 
a  big  blacksnake  which  tried  to  carry  off  one 
of  the  chicks.  The  cock  darted  to  and  fro  over 
the  snake,  striking  it  continually  until  it  suc 
cumbed. 

Pass  Christian  is  an  ideal  place  for  a  man  to 
go  who  wishes  to  get  away  from  the  Northern 
cold  for  a  few  weeks,  and  be  where  climate, 
people,  and  surroundings  are  all  delightful,  and 
the  fishing  and  shooting  excellent.  There  is  a 
good  chance,  too,  that  the  fish  and  game  will 
be  preserved  for  use,  instead  of  recklessly  ex 
terminated;  for  during  the  last  dozen  years 
Louisiana  and  Mississippi,  like  the  rest  of  the 
Union,  have  waked  to  the  criminality  of  mar 
ring  and  ruining  a  beautiful  heritage  which 
should  be  left,  and  through  wise  use  (not  non- 
use)  can  be  left,  undiminished,  to  the  genera 
tions  that  are  to  come  after  us.  As  yet  the 
Gulf  in  front  of  the  houses  swarms  with  fish  of 
many  kinds  up  to  the  great  tarpon,  the  mailed 
and  leaping  giant  of  the  warm  seas;  and  with 
the  rapid  growth  of  wisdom  in  dealing  with 
nature  we  may  hope  that  there  will  soon  be 
action  looking  toward  the  regulation  of  seining 
and  to  protection  of  the  fish  at  certain  seasons. 
On  land  the  quail  have  increased  in  the  neigh- 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      281 

borhood  of  Pass  Christian  during  the  last  few 
years.  This  is  largely  due  to  the  activity  of 
my  host  and  his  two  sons  as  hunters.  They 
have  a  pack  of  beagles,  trained  to  night  work, 
and  this  pack  has  to  its  credit  nearly  four  hun 
dred  coons  and  possums  —  together  with  an  oc 
casional  skunk!  --  and,  moreover,  has  chivied 
the  gray  foxes  almost  out  of  the  country;  and 
all  these  animals  are  the  inveterate  enemies  of 
all  small  game,  and  especially  of  ground-nest 
ing  birds.  To  save  interesting  creatures,  it  is 
often  necessary  not  merely  to  refrain  from 
killing  them  but  also  to  war  on  their  enemies. 
One  of  the  sons  runs  the  Parker  stock-farm 
in  upper  Louisiana,  beside  the  Mississippi. 
There  are  about  four  thousand  acres,  half  of 
it  highland,  the  other  half  subject  to  flood  if 
the  levees  break.  Five  years  ago  such  a  break 
absolutely  destroyed  the  Parker  plantations, 
then  exclusively  on  low  land.  Now,  in  event  of 
flood,  the  stock  can  be  driven,  and  the  human 
beings  escape,  to  the  higher  ground.  Young 
Parker,  now  twenty-two  years  old,  has  run  the 
plantation  since  he  was  sixteen.  The  horses, 
cattle,  and  sheep  are  all  of  the  highest  grade; 
the  improvement  in  the  stock  of  Louisiana  and 
Mississippi  during  the  last  two  decades  has 
been  really  noteworthy.  Game,  and  wild  things 


282     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

generally,  have  increased  in  numbers  on  this 
big  stock-farm.  There  is  no  wanton  molesta 
tion  of  any  animal  permitted,  no  plundering 
of  nests,  no  shooting  save  within  strictly  defined 
limits,  and  so  far  as  possible  all  rare  things  are 
given  every  chance  to  increase.  As  an  example, 
when,  in  clearing  a  tract  of  swamp  land,  a 
heron's  nest  was  discovered,  the  bushes  round 
about  were  left  undisturbed,  and  the  heron 
family  was  reared  in  safety.  Wild  turkeys 
have  somewhat,  and  quail  very  markedly,  in 
creased.  The  great  horned  owls,  which  de 
stroyed  the  ducks,  have  to  be  warred  against, 
and  the  beasts  of  prey  likewise.  Surely  it  will 
ultimately  again  be  recognized  in  our  country 
that  life  on  a  plantation,  on  a  great  stock-farm 
or  ranch,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting,  and, 
from  the  standpoint  of  both  body  and  soul, 
one  of  the  most  healthy,  of  all  ways  of  earning 
a  living. 

At  four  on  the  morning  of  the  8th  our  party 
started  from  the  wharf  in  front  of  Pass  Christian. 
We  were  in  two  boats.  One,  good-sized  and 
comfortable,  under  the  command  of  Captain 
Lewis  Young,  was  the  property  of  the  State 
Conservation  Commission  of  Louisiana,  the 
commission  having  most  courteously  placed 
it  at  our  disposal.  On  this  boat  were  my  host, 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      283 

his  two  sons,  John,  Jr.,  and  Toin,  myself,  and 
a  photographer,  Mr.  Coquille,  of  New  Orleans. 
The  other  boat,  named  the  Royal  Tern,  was  the 
property  of  the  Audubon  Society,  being  allotted 
to  the  work  of  cruising  among  and  protecting 
the  bird  colonies  on  those  islands  set  apart  as 
bird  refuges  by  the  National  and  State  Govern 
ments.  On  this  boat  —  which  had  a  wretched 
engine,  almost  worthless  --  went  Mr.  Herbert 
K.  Job  and  Mr.  Frank  M.  Miller.  Mr.  Miller 
was  at  one  time  president  of  the  Louisiana  Con 
servation  Commission,  and  the  founder  of  the 
Louisiana  State  Audubon  Society,  and  is  one 
of  the  group  of  men  to  whom  she  owes  it  that 
she,  the  home  state  of  Audubon,  of  our  first 
great  naturalist,  is  now  thoroughly  awake  to 
the  danger  of  reckless  waste  and  destruction 
of  all  the  natural  resources  of  the  State,  includ 
ing  the  birds.  Mr.  Herbert  K.  Job  is  known 
to  all  who  care  for  bird  study  and  bird  preserva 
tion.  He  is  a  naturalist  who  has  made  of  bird- 
photography  a  sport,  a  science,  and  an  art. 
His  pictures,  and  his  books  in  which  these  pic 
tures  appear,  are  fascinating  both  to  the  scien 
tific  ornithologist  and  to  all  lovers  of  the  wild 
creatures  of  the  open.  Like  the  other  field 
naturalists  I  have  known,  like  the  men  who 
were  with  me  in  Africa  and  South  America, 


284     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

Mr.  Job  is  an  exceptionally  hardy,  resolute, 
and  resourceful  man,  following  his  wilderness 
work  with  single-minded  devotion,  and  con 
tinually,  and  in  matter-of-fact  manner,  facing 
and  overcoming  hardship,  wearing  toil,  and  risk 
which  worthy  stay-at-home  people  have  no 
means  whatever  of  even  gauging.  I  owed  the 
pleasure  of  Mr.  Job's  company  to  Mr.  Frank 
M.  Chapman,  at  whose  suggestion  he  was  sent 
with  me  by  the  National  Audubon  Society. 

The  State  Conservation  Commission  owes 
its  existence  to  the  wise  public  spirit  and  far 
sightedness  of  the  Louisiana  Legislature.  The 
Audubon  Society,  which  has  done  far  more 
than  any  other  single  agency  in  creating  and 
fostering  an  enlightened  public  sentiment  for 
the  preservation  of  our  useful  and  attractive 
birds,  is  a  purely  voluntary  organization,  con 
sisting  of  men  and  women  who  in  these  matters 
look  further  ahead  than  their  fellows,  and  who 
have  the  precious  gift  of  sympathetic  imagina 
tion,  so  that  they  are  able  to  see,  and  to  wish 
to  preserve  for  their  children's  children,  the 
beauty  and  wonder  of  nature.  (During  the  year 
preceding  this  trip,  by  the  way,  the  society  en 
rolled  one  hundred  and  fifty-one  thousand  boys 
and  girls  in  its  junior  bird  clubs,  all  of  which 
give  systematic  instruction  in  the  value  of  bird 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      285 

life.)  It  was  the  Audubon  Society  which 
started  the  movement  for  the  establishment  of 
bird  refuges.  The  society  now  protects  and 
polices  about  one  hundred  of  these  refuges, 
which,  of  course,  are  worthless  unless  thus 
protected. 

The  Royal  Tern  is  commanded  by  Captain 
William  Sprinkle,  born  and  bred  on  this  Gulf 
coast,  who  knows  the  sea-fowl,  and  the  islands 
where  they  breed  and  dwell,  as  he  knows  the 
winds  and  the  lovely,  smiling,  treacherous  Gulf 
waters.  He  is  game  warden,  and  he  and  the 
Royal  Tern  are  the  police  force  for  over  five 
hundred  square  miles  of  sand-bars,  shallow 
waters,  and  intricate  channels.  The  man  and 
the  boat  are  two  of  the  chief  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  poachers,  the  plume-hunters,  and 
eggers,  who  always  threaten  these  bird  sanc 
tuaries. 

Many  of  these  poachers  are  at  heart  good 
men,  who  follow  their  fathers'  business,  just  as 
respectable  men  on  the  seacoast  once  followed 
the  business  of  wrecking.  But  when  times 
change  and  a  once  acknowledged  trade  conies 
under  the  ban  of  the  law  the  character  of  those 
following  it  also  changes  for  the  worse.  Wreck 
ers  are  no  longer  respectable,  and  plume-hunters 
and  eggers  are  sinking  to  the  same  level.  The 


286     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

illegal  business  of  killing  breeding  birds,  of 
leaving  nestlings  to  starve  wholesale,  and  of 
general  ruthless  extermination,  more  and  more 
tends  to  attract  men  of  the  same  moral  cate 
gory  as  those  who  sell  whiskey  to  Indians  and 
combine  the  running  of  "blind  pigs"  with  high 
way  robbery  and  murder  for  hire. 

In  Florida  one  of  the  best  game  wardens  of 
the  Audubon  Society  was  killed  by  these  sordid 
bird-butchers.  A  fearless  man  and  a  good  boat 
are  needed  to  keep  such  gentry  in  awe.  Captain 
Sprinkle  meets  the  first  requirement,  the  hull 
of  the  Royal  Tern  the  second.  But  the  engines 
of  the  Tern  are  worthless ;  she  can  catch  no  free 
booter;  she  is  safe  only  in  the  mildest  weather. 
Is  there  not  some  bird-lover  of  means  and  imagi 
nation  who  will  put  a  good  engine  in  her?  Such 
a  service  would  be  very  real.  As  for  Captain 
Sprinkle,  his  services  are,  of  course,  underpaid, 
his  salary  bearing  no  relation  to  their  value. 
The  Biological  Survey  does  its  best  with  its 
limited  means;  the  Audubon  Society  adds 
something  extra;  but  this  very  efficient  and  dis 
interested  laborer  is  worth  a  good  deal  more 
than  the  hire  he  receives.  The  government 
pays  many  of  its  servants,  usually  those  with 
rather  easy  jobs,  too  much;  but  the  best  men, 
who  do  the  hardest  work,  the  men  in  the  life-sav- 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      287 

ing  and  lighthouse  service,  the  forest-rangers, 
and  those  who  patrol  and  protect  the  reserves 
of  wild  life,  are  almost  always  underpaid. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  disadvantages,  much 
has  been  accomplished.  This  particular  reser 
vation  was  set  apart  by  presidential  proclama 
tion  in  1905.  Captain  Sprinkle  was  at  once  put 
in  charge.  Of  the  five  chief  birds,  the  royal 
terns,  Caspian  terns,  Cabot's  terns,  laughing 
gulls,  and  skimmers,  there  were  that  season 
about  one  thousand  nests.  This  season,  ten 
years  later,  there  are  about  thirty-five  thousand 
nests.  The  brown  pelicans  and  Louisiana 
herons  also  show  a  marked  increase.  The  least 
tern,  which  had  been  completely  exterminated 
or  driven  away,  has  returned  and  is  breeding 
in  fair  numbers. 

As  we  steamed  away  from  the  Pass  Chris 
tian  dock  dawn  was  turning  to  daylight  under 
the  still  brilliant  crescent  moon.  Soon  we  saw 
the  red  disk  of  the  sun  rising  behind  the  pine 
forest.  We  left  Mississippi  Sound,  and  then 
were  on  the  Gulf  itself.  The  Gulf  was  calm, 
and  the  still  water  teemed  with  life.  Each 
school  of  mullets  or  sardines  could  be  told  by 
the  queer  effect  on  the  water,  as  of  a  cloud 
shadow.  Continually  we  caught  glimpses  of 
other  fish;  and  always  they  were  fleeing  from 


288     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

death  or  ravenously  seeking  to  inflict  death  on 
the  weak.  Nature  is  ruthless,  and  where  her 
sway  is  uncontested  there  is  no  peace  save  the 
peace  of  death;  and  the  fecund  stream  of  life, 
especially  of  life  on  the  lower  levels,  flows  like 
an  immense  torrent  out  of  non-existence  for  but 
the  briefest  moment  before  the  enormous  ma 
jority  of  the  beings  composing  it  are  engulfed  in 
the  jaws  of  death,  and  again  go  out  into  the 
shadow. 

Huge  rays  sprang  out  of  the  water  and  fell 
back  with  a  resounding  splash.  Devil-fish, 
which  made  the  rays  look  like  dwarfs,  swam 
slowly  near  the  surface;  some  had  their  mouths 
wide  open  as  they  followed  their  prey.  Globular 
jellyfish,  as  big  as  pumpkins,  with  translucent 
bodies,  pulsed  through  the  waters;  little  fishes 
and  crabs  swam  among  their  short,  thick  ten 
tacles  and  in  between  the  waving  walls  into 
which  the  body  was  divided.  Once  we  saw  the 
head  of  a  turtle  above  water;  it  was  a  logger 
head  turtle,  and  the  head  was  as  large  as 
the  head  of  a  man;  when  I  first  saw  it,  above 
the  still  water,  I  had  no  idea  what  it  was. 

By  noon  we  were  among  the  islands  of  the 
reservation.  We  had  already  passed  other  and 
larger  islands,  for  the  most  part  well  wooded. 
On  these  there  were  great  numbers  of  coons 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      289 

and  minks,  and  therefore  none  of  the  sea-birds 
which  rest  on  the  ground  or  in  low  bushes. 
The  coons  are  more  common  than  the  minks 
and  muskrats.  In  the  inundations  they  are 
continually  being  carried  out  to  sea  on  logs; 
a  planter  informed  me  that  on  one  occasion  in 
a  flood  he  met  a  log  sailing  down  the  swollen 
Mississippi  with  no  less  than  eleven  coons 
aboard.  Sooner  or  later  castaway  coons  land 
on  every  considerable  island  off  the  coast,  and 
if  there  is  fresh  water,  and  even  sometimes  if 
there  is  none,  they  thrive;  and  where  there  are 
many  coons,  the  gulls,  terns,  skimmers,  and 
other  such  birds  have  very  little  chance  to 
bring  up  their  young.  Coons  are  fond  of  ram 
bling  along  beaches;  at  low  tide  they  devour 
shell-fish;  and  they  explore  the  grass  tufts  and 
bushes,  and  eat  nestlings,  eggs,  and  even  the 
sitting  birds.  If  on  any  island  we  found  numer 
ous  coon  tracks  there  were  usually  few  nesting 
sea-fowl,  save  possibly  on  some  isolated  point. 
The  birds  breed  most  plentifully  in  the  number 
less  smaller  islands  —  some  of  considerable  size 
—  where  there  is  no  water,  and  usually  not  a 
tree.  Some  of  these  islands  are  nothing  but 
sand,  with  banks  and  ramparts  of  shells,  while 
others  are  fringed  with  marsh -grass  and  covered 
with  scrub  mangrove.  But  the  occasional  fierce 


290     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

tropical  storms  not  only  change  the  channels 
and  alter  the  shape  of  many  of  the  islands,  but 
may  even  break  up  some  very  big  island.  In 
such  case  an  island  with  trees  and  water  may 
for  years  be  entirely  uninhabited  by  coons,  and 
the  birds  may  form  huge  rookeries  thereon. 
The  government  should  exterminate  the  coons 
and  minks  on  all  the  large  islands,  so  as  to  en 
able  the  birds  to  breed  on  them;  for  on  the 
small  islands  the  storms  and  tides  work  huge 
havoc  with  the  nests. 

Captain  Young  proved  himself  not  only  a 
first-class  captain  but  a  first-class  pilot  through 
the  shifting  and  tangled  maze  of  channels  and 
islands.  The  Royal  Tern,  her  engines  breaking 
down  intermittently,  fell  so  far  in  the  rear  that 
in  the  early  afternoon  we  anchored,  to  wait 
for  her,  off  an  island  to  which  a  band  of  pelicans 
resorted  -  -  they  had  nested,  earlier  in  the  year, 
on  another  island  some  leagues  distant.  The 
big  birds,  forty  or  thereabouts  in  number,  were 
sitting  on  a  sand-spit  which  projected  into  the 
water,  enjoying  a  noontide  rest.  As  we  ap 
proached  they  rose  and  flapped  lazily  out  to 
sea  for  a  few  hundred  yards  before  again  light 
ing.  Later  in  the  afternoon  they  began  to  fly 
to  the  fishing-grounds,  and  back  and  forth, 
singly  and  in  small  groups.  In  flying  they 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      291 

usually  gave  a  dozen  rapid  wing-beats,  and 
then  sailed  for  a  few  seconds.  If  several  were 
together  the  leader  gave  the  "time"  to  the 
others;  they  all  flapped  together,  and  then  all 
glided  together.  The  neck  was  carried  in  a 
curve,  like  a  heron's;  it  was  only  stretched  out 
straight  like  a  stork's  or  bustard's  when  the 
bird  was  diving.  Some  of  the  fishing  was  done, 
singly  or  in  parties,  in  the  water,  the  pelicans 
surrounding  shoals  of  sardines  and  shrimps, 
and  scooping  them  up  in  their  capacious  bags. 
But,  although  such  a  large,  heavy  bird,  the 
brown  pelican  is  an  expert  wing-fisherman  also. 
A  pair  would  soar  round  in  circles,  the  bill  per 
haps  pointing  downward,  instead  of,  as  usual, 
being  held  horizontally.  Then,  when  the  fish 
was  spied  the  bird  plunged  down,  almost  per 
pendicularly,  the  neck  stretched  straight  and 
rigid,  and  disappeared  below  the  surface  of  the 
water  with  a  thump  and  splash,  and  in  a  couple 
of  seconds  emerged,  rose  with  some  labor,  and 
flew  off  with  its  prey.  At  this  point  the  pelicans 
had  finished  breeding  before  my  arrival  —  al 
though  a  fortnight  later  Mr.  Job  found  thou 
sands  of  fresh  eggs  in  their  great  rookeries  west 
of  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  The  herons 
had  well-grown  nestlings,  whereas  the  terns 
and  gulls  were  in  the  midst  of  the  breeding, 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  the  skimmers  had  only  just  begun.  The 
pelicans  often  flew  only  a  few  yards,  or  even 
feet,  above  the  water,  but  also  at  times  soared 
or  wheeled  twenty  or  thirty  rods  in  the  air,  or 
higher.  They  are  handsome,  interesting  birds, 
and  add  immensely,  by  their  presence,  to  the 
pleasure  of  being  out  on  these  waters;  they 
should  be  completely  protected  everywhere  — 
as,  indeed,  should  most  of  these  sea-birds. 

The  two  Parker  boys  —  the  elder  of  whom  had 
for  years  been  doing  a  man's  work  in  the  best 
fashion,  and  the  younger  of  whom  had  just 
received  an  appointment  to  Annapolis  —  kept 
us  supplied  with  fish,  caught  with  the  hook 
and  rod,  except  the  flounders,  which  were  har 
pooned.  The  two  boys  were  untiring;  nothing 
impaired  their  energy,  and  no  chance  of  fatigue 
and  exertion,  at  any  time  of  the  day  or  night, 
appealed  to  them  save  as  an  exhilarating  piece 
of  good  fortune.  At  a  time  when  so  large  a 
section  of  our  people,  including  especially  those 
who  claim  in  a  special  sense  to  be  the  guardians 
of  cultivation,  philanthropy,  and  religion,  de 
liberately  make  a  cult  of  pacifism,  poltroonery, 
sentimentality,  and  neurotic  emotionalism,  it 
was  refreshing  to  see  the  fine,  healthy,  manly 
young  fellows  who  were  emphatically  neither 
"too  proud  to  fight"  nor  too  proud  to  work, 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      293 

and  with  whom  hard  work,  and  gentle  regard 
for  the  rights  of  others,  and  the  joy  of  life,  all 
went  hand  in  hand. 

Toward  evening  of  our  first  day  the  weather 
changed  for  the  worse;  the  fishers  among  the 
party  were  recalled,  and  just  before  nightfall 
we  ran  off,  and  after  much  groping  in  the  dark 
we  made  a  reasonably  safe  anchorage.  By 
midnight  the  wind  fell,  dense  swarms  of  mos 
quitoes  came  aboard,  and,  as  our  mosquito- 
nets  were  not  well  up  (thanks  partly  to  our 
own  improvidence,  and  partly  to  the  violence 
of  the  wind,  for  we  were  sleeping  on  deck  be 
cause  of  the  great  heat),  we  lived  in  torment 
until  morning.  On  the  subsequent  nights  we 
fixed  our  mosquito-bars  so  carefully  that  there 
was  no  trouble.  Mosquitoes  and  huge,  green- 
headed  horse-flies  swarm  on  most  of  the  islands. 
I  witnessed  one  curious  incident  in  connection 
with  one  of  these  big,  biting  horse-flies.  A  kind 
of  wasp  preys  on  them,  and  is  locally  known  as 
the  " horse-guard,"  or  "sheriff-fly,"  accordingly. 
These  horse-guards  are  formidable-looking  things 
and  at  first  rather  alarm  strangers,  hovering 
round  them  and  their  horses;  but  they  never 
assail  beast  or  man  unless  themselves  molested, 
when  they  are  ready  enough  to  use  their  power 
ful  sting.  The  horses  and  cattle  speedily  recog- 


294     A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

nize  these  big,  humming,  hornet-like  horse- 
guards  as  the  foes  of  their  tormentors.  As  we 
walked  over  the  islands,  and  the  green-headed 
flies  followed  us,  horse-guards  also  joined  us; 
and  many  greenheads  and  some  horse-guards 
came  on  board.  Usually  when  the  horse-guard 
secured  the  greenhead  it  was  pounced  on  from 
behind,  and  there  was  practically  no  struggle  - 
the  absence  of  struggle  being  usual  in  the  world 
of  invertebrates,  where  the  automaton-like  ac 
tions  of  both  preyer  and  prey  tend  to  make 
each  case  resemble  all  others  in  its  details.  But 
on  one  occasion  the  greenhead  managed  to 
turn,  so  that  he  fronted  his  assailant  and 
promptly  grappled  with  him,  sinking  his  evil 
lancet  into  the  wasp's  body  and  holding  the 
wasp  so  tight  that  the  latter  could  not  thrust 
with  its  sting.  They  grappled  thus  for  several 
minutes.  The  horse-guard  at  last  succeeded  in 
stabbing  its  antagonist,  and  promptly  dropped 
the  dead  body.  Evidently  it  had  suffered  much, 
for  it  vigorously  rubbed  the  wounded  spot  with 
its  third  pair  of  legs,  walked  hunched  up,  and 
was  altogether  a  very  sick  creature. 

On  the  following  day  we  visited  two  or  three 
islands  which  the  man-of-war  birds  were  using 
as  roosts.  These  birds  are  the  most  wonderful 
fliers  in  the  world.  No  other  bird  has  such  an 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      295 

expanse  of  wing  in  proportion  to  the  body 
weight.  No  other  bird  of  its  size  seems  so  abso 
lutely  at  home  in  the  air.  Frigate-birds  —  as 
they  are  also  called  —  hardly  ever  light  on  the 
water,  yet  they  are  sometimes  seen  in  mid- 
ocean.  But  they  like  to  live  in  companies, 
near  some  coast.  They  have  very  long  tails, 
usually  carried  closed,  looking  like  a  marlin- 
spike,  but  at  times  open,  like  a  great  pair  of 
scissors,  in  the  course  of  their  indescribably 
graceful  aerial  evolutions.  We  saw  them  soar 
ing  for  hours  at  a  time,  sometimes  to  all  seeming 
absolutely  motionless  as  they  faced  the  wind. 
They  sometimes  caught  fish  for  themselves, 
just  rippling  the  water  to  seize  surface  swimmers, 
or  pouncing  with  startling  speed  on  any  fish 
which  for  a  moment  leaped  into  the  air  to  avoid 
another  shape  of  ravenous  death  below.  If 
the  frigate-bird  caught  the  fish  transversely,  it 
rose,  dropped  its  prey,  and  seized  it  again  by 
the  head  before  it  struck  the  water.  But  it 
also  obtained  its  food  in  less  honorable  fashion 
— by  robbing  other  birds.  The  pelicans  were 
plundered  by  all  their  fish-eating  neighbors, 
even  the  big  terns;  but  the  man-of-war  bird 
robbed  the  robbers.  We  saw  three  chase  a 
royal  tern,  a  very  strong  flier;  the  tern  towered, 
ascending  so  high  we  could  hardly  see  it,  but 


£96     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

in  great  spirals  its  pursuers  rose  still  faster, 
until  one  was  above  it;  and  then  the  tern 
dropped  the  fish,  which  was  snatched  in  mid 
air  by  one  of  the  bandits.  Captain  Sprinkle 
had  found  these  frigate-birds  breeding  on  one 
of  the  islands  the  previous  year,  each  nest  being 
placed  in  a  bush  and  containing  two  eggs.  We 
visited  the  island;  the  big  birds  —  the  old 
males  jet  black,  the  females  with  white  breasts, 
the  young  males  with  white  heads  —  were  there 
in  numbers,  perched  on  the  bushes,  and  rising 
at  our  approach.  But  there  were  no  nests,  and, 
although  we  found  one  fresh  egg,  it  was  evi 
dently  a  case  of  sporadic  laying,  having  nothing 
to  do  with  home-building. 

On  another  island,  where  we  also  found  a 
big  colony  of  frigate-birds  roosting  on  the  man 
grove  and  Gulf  tamarisk  scrub,  there  was  a 
small  heronry  of  the  Louisiana  heron.  The 
characteristic  flimsy  heron  nests  were  placed  in 
the  thick  brush,  which  was  rather  taller  than  a 
man's  head.  The  young  ones  had  left  the 
nests,  but  were  still  too  young  for  anything  in 
the  nature  of  sustained  flight.  They  were,  like 
all  young  herons,  the  pictures  of  forlorn  and 
unlovely  inefficiency,  as  they  flapped  a  few  feet 
away  and  strove  with  ungainly  awkwardness 
to  balance  themselves  on  the  yielding  bush 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      297 

tops.  The  small  birds  we  found  on  the  islands 
were  red-winged  blackbirds,  Louisiana  seaside 
sparrows,  and  long-billed  marsh-wrens  —  which 
last  had  built  their  domed  houses  among  the 
bushes,  in  default  of  tall  reeds.  On  one  island 
Job  discovered  a  night-hawk  on  her  nest.  She 
fluttered  off,  doing  the  wounded-bird  trick, 
leaving  behind  her  an  egg  and  a  newly  hatched 
chick.  He  went  off  to  get  his  umbrella-house, 
and  when  he  returned  the  other  egg  was  hatch 
ing,  and  another  little  chick,  much  distressed 
by  the  heat,  appeared.  He  stood  up  a  clam 
shell  to  give  it  shade,  and  then,  after  patient 
waiting,  the  mother  returned,  and  he  secured 
motion-pictures  of  her  and  her  little  family. 
These  birds  offer  very  striking  examples  of  real 
protective  coloration. 

The  warm  shallows,  of  course,  teem  with  mol- 
lusks  as  well  as  with  fish  —  not  to  mention  the 
shrimps,  which  go  in  immense  silver  schools, 
and  which  we  found  delicious  eating.  The  oc 
casional  violent  storms,  when  they  do  not  de 
stroy  islands,  throw  up  on  them  huge  dikes  or 
ramparts  of  shells,  which  makes  the  walking 
hard  on  the  feet. 

There  are  more  formidable  things  than  shells 
in  the  warm  shallows.  The  fishermen  as  they 
waded  near  shore  had  to  be  careful  lest  they 


298     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

should  step  on  a  sting-ray.  When  a  swim  was 
proposed  as  our  boat  swung  at  anchor  in  mid- 
channel,  under  the  burning  midday  sun,  Captain 
Sprinkle  warned  us  against  it  because  he  had 
just  seen  a  large  shark.  He  said  that  sharks 
rarely  attacked  men,  but  that  he  had  known  of 
two  instances  of  their  doing  so  in  Mississippi 
Sound,  one  ending  fatally.  In  this  case  the  man 
was  loading  a  sand  schooner.  He  was  standing 
on  a  scaffolding,  the  water  half-way  up  his 
thighs,  and  the  shark  seized  him  and  carried 
him  into  deep  water.  Boats  went  to  his  as 
sistance  at  once,  scaring  off  the  shark;  but  the 
man's  leg  had  been  bitten  nearly  in  two;  he 
sank,  and  was  dead  when  he  was  finally  found. 
The  following  two  days  we  continued  our 
cruise.  We  steamed  across  vast  reaches  of 
open  Gulf,  the  water  changing  from  blue  to 
yellow  as  it  shoaled.  Now  and  then  we  sighted 
or  passed  low  islands  of  bare  sand  and  scrub. 
The  sky  was  sapphire,  the  sun  splendid  and 
pitiless,  the  heat  sweltering.  W7e  came  across 
only  too  plain  evidence  of  the  disasters  always 
hanging  over  the  wilderness  folk.  A  fortnight 
previously  a  high  tide  and  a  heavy  blow  had 
occurred  coinciden tally.  On  the  islands  where 
the  royal  terns  especially  loved  to  nest  the  high 
water  spelled  destruction.  The  terns  nest  close 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      299 

together,  in  bird  cities,  so  to  speak,  and  gen 
erally  rather  low  on  the  beaches.  On  island 
after  island  the  waves  had  washed  over  the 
nests  and  destroyed  them  by  the  ten  thousand. 
The  beautiful  royal  terns  were  the  chief  sufferers. 
On  one  island  there  was  a  space  perhaps  nearly 
an  acre  in  extent  where  the  ground  was  covered 
with  their  eggs,  which  had  been  washed  thither 
by  the  tide;  most  of  them  had  then  been  eaten 
by  those  smart-looking  highwaymen,  the  trim, 
slate-headed  laughing  gulls.  The  terns  had 
completely  deserted  the  island  and  had  gone 
in  their  thousands  to  another;  but  some  skim 
mers  remained  and  were  nesting.  The  western 
most  island,  we  visited  was  outside  the  national 
reservation,  and  that  very  morning  it  had  been 
visited  and  plundered  by  a  party  of  eggers. 
The  eggs  had  been  completely  cleared  from 
most  of  the  island,  gulls  and  terns  had  been 
shot,  and  the  survivors  were  in  a  frantic  state 
of  excitement.  It  was  a  good  object-lesson  in 
the  need  of  having  reserves,  and  laws  protecting 
wild  life,  and  a  sufficient  number  of  efficient 
officers  to  enforce  the  laws  and  protect  the  re 
serves.  Defenders  of  the  short-sighted  men 
who  in  their  greed  and  selfishness  will,  if  per 
mitted,  rob  our  country  of  half  its  charm  by 
their  reckless  extermination  of  all  useful  and 


300     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

beautiful  wild  things  sometimes  seek  to  cham 
pion  them  by  saying  that  "the  game  belongs 
to  the  people."  So  it  does;  and  not  merely 
to  the  people  now  alive,  but  to  the  unborn 
people.  The  "greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number"  applies  to  the  number  within  the 
womb  of  time,  compared  to  which  those  now 
alive  form  but  an  insignificant  fraction.  Our 
duty  to  the  whole,  including  the  unborn  gen 
erations,  bids  us  restrain  an  unprincipled  pres 
ent-day  minority  from  wasting  the  heritage  of 
these  unborn  generations.  The  movement  for 
the  conservation  of  wild  life,  and  the  larger 
movement  for  the  conservation  of  all  our  natural 
resources,  are  essentially  democratic  in  spirit, 
purpose,  and  method. 

On  some  of  the  islands  we  found  where  green 
turtles  had  crawled  up  the  beaches  to  bury 
their  eggs  in  the  sand.  We  came  across  two 
such  nests.  One  of  them  I  dug  up  myself. 
The  eggs  we  took  to  the  boat,  where  they  were 
used  in  making  delicious  pancakes,  which  went 
well  with  fresh  shrimp,  flounder,  weakfish, 
mackerel,  and  mullet. 

The  laughing  gulls  and  the  black  skimmers 
were  often  found  with  their  nests  intermingled, 
and  they  hovered  over  our  heads  with  the  same 
noisy  protest  against  our  presence.  Although 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      301 

they  of  ten --not  always  —  nested  so  close  to 
gether,  the  nests  were  in  no  way  alike.  The 
gulls'  dark-green  eggs,  heavily  blotched  with 
brown,  two  or  three  in  number,  lay  on  a  rude 
platform  of  marsh-grass,  which  was  usually 
partially  sheltered  by  some  bush  or  tuft  of  reeds, 
or,  if  on  wet  ground,  was  on  a  low  pile  of  drift 
wood.  The  skimmers'  eggs,  light  whitish  green 
and  less  heavily  marked  with  brown,  were, 
when  the  clutch  was  full,  four  to  six  in  number. 
There  was  no  nest  at  all,  nothing  but  a  slight 
hollow  in  the  sand,  or  gravel  or  shell  debris. 
In  the  gravel  or  among  the  shell  debris  it  was 
at  first  hard  to  pick  out  the  eggs;  but  as  our 
eyes  grew  accustomed  to  them  we  found  them 
without  difficulty.  Sometimes  we  found  the 
nests  of  gull  and  skimmer  within  a  couple  of 
feet  of  one  another,  one  often  under  or  in  a 
bush,  the  other  always  out  on  the  absolutely 
bare  open.  Considering  the  fact  that  the  gull 
stood  ready,  with  cannibal  cheerfulness,  to  eat 
the  skimmer's  eggs  if  opportunity  offered,  I 
should  have  thought  that  to  the  latter  bird 
such  association  would  have  seemed  rather 
grewsome;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  seemed 
to  be  no  feeling  of  constraint  whatever  on  either 
side,  and  the  only  fighting  I  saw,  and  this  of  a 
very  mild  type,  was  among  the  gulls  themselves. 


302     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

As  we  approached  their  nesting-places  all  these 
birds  rose,  and  clamored  loudly  as  they  hovered 
over  us,  lighting  not  far  off,  and  returning  to 
their  nests  as  we  moved  away. 

The  skimmers  are  odd,  interesting  birds,  and 
on  the  whole  were,  if  anything,  rather  tamer 
even  than  the  royal  terns  and  laughing  gulls, 
their  constant  associates.  They  came  close  be 
hind  these  two  in  point  of  abundance.  They 
flew  round  and  round  us,  and  to  and  fro,  con 
tinually  uttering  their  loud  single  note,  the  bill 
being  held  half  open  as  they  did  so.  The  lower 
mandible,  so  much  longer  than  the  upper,  gives 
them  a  curious  look.  Ordinarily  the  bill  is 
held  horizontally  and  closed;  but  when  after 
the  small  fish  on  which  they  feed  the  lower 
mandible  is  dropped  to  an  angle  of  forty-five 
degrees,  ploughing  lightly  the  surface  of  the 
water  and  scooping  up  the  prey.  They  fly 
easily,  with  at  ordinary  times  rather  deliberate 
strokes  of  their  long  wings,  wheeling  and  cir 
cling,  and  continually  crying  if  roused  from  their 
nests.  When  flying  the  white  of  their  plumage 
is  very  conspicuous,  and  as  they  flapped  around 
every  detail  of  form  and  coloration,  of  bill  and 
plumage,  could  be  observed. 

When  sitting  they  appear  almost  black,  and, 
in  consequence,  when  on  their  nests,  on  the 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      303 

beaches  or  on  the  white-shell  dikes,  they  are 
visible  half  a  mile  off,  and  stand  out  as  distinctly 
as  a  crow  on  a  snow-bank.1  They  are  perfectly 
aware  of  this,  and  make  no  attempt  to  elude 
observation,  any  more  than  the  gulls  and  terns 
do.  The  fledglings  are  concealingly  colored, 
and  crouch  motionless,  so  as  to  escape  notice 
from  possible  enemies;  and  the  eggs,  while 
they  do  not  in  color  harmonize  with  the  sur 
roundings  to  the  extent  that  they  might  arti 
ficially  be  made  to  do,  yet  easily  escape  the 
eye  when  laid  on  a  beach  composed  of  broken 
sea-shells.  But  the  coloration  of  the  adults  is 
of  a  strikingly  advertising  character,  under  all 
circumstances,  and  especially  when  they  are 
sitting  on  their  nests.  Among  all  the  vagaries 
of  the  fetichistic  school  of  concealing-colora- 
tionists  none  is  more  amusing  than  the  belief 
that  the  coloration  of  the  adult  skimmer  is 
ever,  under  any  conditions,  of  a  concealing 
quality.  Sometimes  the  brooding  skimmer  at 
tempted  to  draw  us  away  from  the  nest  by 
fluttering  off  across  the  sand  like  a  wounded 
bird.  Like  the  gulls,  the  skimmers  moved  about 
much  more  freely  on  the  ground  than  did  the 
terns. 

1  An  expression  borrowed  from  Stewart  Edward  White's  capital  "Re 
discovered  Country." 


304      A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

The  handsome  little  laughing  gull  was  found 
everywhere,  and  often  in  numerous  colonies, 
although  these  colonies  were  not  larger  than 
those  of  the  skimmer,  and  in  no  way  approached 
the  great  breeding  assemblages  of  the  royal 
terns  on  the  two  or  three  islands  where  the 
latter  especially  congregated.  They  were  noisy 
birds,  continually  uttering  a  single  loud  note, 
but  only  occasionally  the  queer  laughter  which 
gives  them  their  name.  They  looked  very  trim 
and  handsome,  both  on  the  wing  and  when 
swimming  or  walking;  and  their  white  breasts 
and  dark  heads  made  them  very  conspicuous 
on  their  nests,  no  matter  whether  these  were 
on  open  ground  or  partially  concealed  in  a  bush 
or  reed  cluster.  Like  the  skimmers,  although 
perhaps  not  quite  so  markedly,  their  coloration 
was  strongly  advertising  at  all  times,  including 
when  on  their  nests.  Their  relations  with  their 
two  constant  associates  and  victims,  the  skim 
mer  and  the  royal  tern  —  the  three  being  about 
the  same  size  —  seemed  to  me  very  curious. 
The  gull  never  molested  the  eggs  of  either  of 
the  other  birds  if  the  parents  were  sitting  on 
them  or  were  close  by.  But  gulls  continually 
broke  and  devoured  eggs,  especially  terns' 
eggs,  which  had  been  temporarily  abandoned. 
Nor  was  this  all.  When  a  colony  of  nesting 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      305 

royal  terns  flew  off  at  our  approach,  the  hesitat 
ing  advent  of  the  returning  parents  was  always 
accompanied  by  the  presence  of  a  few  gulls. 
Commonly  the  birds  lit  a  few  yards  away  from 
the  eggs,  on  the  opposite  side  from  the  observer, 
and  then  by  degrees  moved  forward  among  the 
temporarily  forsaken  eggs.  The  gulls  were 
usually  among  the  foremost  ranks,  and  each, 
as  it  walked  or  ran  to  and  fro,  would  now  and 
then  break  or  carry  off  an  egg;  yet  I  never 
saw  a  tern  interfere  or  seem  either  alarmed  or 
angered.  These  big  terns  are  swifter  and  better 
fliers  than  the  gulls,  and  the  depredations  take 
place  all  the  time  before  their  eyes.  Yet  they 
pay  no  attention  that  I  could  discern  to  the 
depredation.  Compare  this  with  the  conduct 
of  king-birds  to  those  other  egg-robbers,  the 
crows.  Imagine  a  king-bird,  or,  for  that  matter, 
a  mocking-bird  or  thrasher,  submitting  with 
weak  good  humor  to  such  treatment!  If  these 
big  terns  had  even  a  fraction  of  the  intelligence 
and  spirit  of  king-birds,  no  gull  would  venture 
within  a  half-mile  of  their  nesting-grounds. 

It  is  one  of  the  innumerable  puzzles  of  biol 
ogy  that  the  number  of  eggs  a  bird  lays  seems 
to  have  such  small  influence  on  the  abundance 
of  the  species.  A  royal  tern  lays  one  egg,  rarely 
two;  a  gull  three;  a  skimmer  four  to  six.  The 


306     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

gull  eats  the  eggs  of  the  other  two,  especially 
of  the  tern;  as  far  as  we  know,  all  have  the 
same  foes;  yet  the  abundance  of  the  birds  is 
in  inverse  ratio  to  the  number  of  their  eggs. 
Of  course,  there  is  an  explanation;  but  we 
cannot  even  guess  at  it  as  yet.  With  this,  as 
with  so  many  other  scientific  questions,  all  we 
can  say  is,  with  Huxley,  that  we  are  not  afraid 
to  announce  that  we  do  not  know. 

The  beautiful  royal  terns  were  common 
enough,  flying  in  the  air  and  diving  boldly 
after  little  fish.  We  listened  with  interest  to 
their  cry,  which  was  a  kind  of  creaking  bleat. 
We  admired  the  silver  of  their  plumage  as  they 
flew  overhead.  But  we  did  not  come  across 
vast  numbers  of  them  assembled  for  breeding 
until  the  fourth  day.  Then  we  found  them  on 
an  island  on  which  Captain  Sprinkle  told  us 
he  had  never  before  found  them,  although  both 
skimmers  and  gulls  had  always  nested  on  it. 
The  previous  fall  he  had  waged  war  with  traps 
against  the  coons,  which,  although  there  was 
no  fresh  water,  had  begun  to  be  plentiful  on 
the  island.  He  had  caught  a  number,  two  escap 
ing,  one  with  the  loss  of  a  hind  foot,  and  one 
with  the  loss  of  a  fore  foot.  The  island  was 
seven  miles  long,  curved,  with  occasional 
stretches  of  salt  marsh,  and  with  reaches  of 


THE   MISSISSIPPI   RESERVES      307 

scrub,  but  no  trees.  Most  of  it  was  bare  sand. 
We  saw  three  coon  tracks,  two  being  those  of 
the  three-footed  animals;  evidently  the  damaged 
leg  was  now  completely  healed  and  was  used 
like  the  others,  punching  a  round  hole  in  the 
sand.  We  saw  one  coon,  at  dusk,  hunting  for 
oysters  at  the  water's  edge. 

The  gulls  and  skimmers  were  nesting  on  this 
island  in  great  numbers,  but  the  terns  were  many 
times  more  plentiful.  There  were  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  them.  Their  breeding-places 
were  strung  in  a  nearly  straight  line  for  a  couple 
of  miles  along  the  sand  flats.  A  mile  off,  from  our 
boat,  we  were  attracted  by  their  myriad  forms, 
glittering  in  the  brilliant  sunlight  as  they  rose 
and  fell  and  crossed  and  circled  over  the  nest 
ing-places.  The  day  was  bright  and  hot,  and 
the  sight  was  one  of  real  fascination.  As  we 
approached  a  breeding  colony  the  birds  would 
fly  up,  hover  about,  and  resettle  when  we  drew 
back  a  sufficient  distance.  The  eggs,  singly,  or 
rarely  in  pairs,  were  placed  on  the  bare  sand, 
with  no  attempt  at  a  nest,  the  brooding  bird 
being  sometimes  but  a  few  inches,  sometimes 
two  or  three  feet,  from  the  nearest  of  its  sur 
rounding  neighbors.  The  colonies  of  breeders 
were  scattered  along  the  shore  for  a  couple  of 
miles,  each  one  being  one  or  two  hundred  yards, 


308     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

or  over,  from  the  next.  In  one  such  breeding 
colony  I  counted  a  little  over  a  thousand  eggs; 
there  were  several  of  smaller  size,  and  a  few 
that  were  larger,  one  having  perhaps  three 
times  as  many.  A  number  of  the  eggs,  perhaps 
ten  per  cent,  had  been  destroyed  by  the  gulls; 
the  coons  had  ravaged  some  of  the  gulls'  nests, 
which  were  in  or  beside  the  scrub.  The  eggs  of 
the  terns,  being  so  close  together  and  on  the 
bare  sand,  were  very  conspicuous;  they  were 
visible  to  a  casual  inspection  at  a  distance  of 
two  or  three  hundred  yards,  and  it  was  quite 
impossible  for  any  bird  or  beast  to  overlook 
them  near  by.  These  gregarious  nesters,  whose 
eggs  are  gathered  in  a  big  nursery,  cannot  profit 
by  any  concealing  coloration  of  the  eggs.  The 
eggs  of  the  royal  and  Cabot's  terns  were  per 
haps  a  shade  less  conspicuous  than  the  darker 
eggs  of  the  Caspian  tern,  all  of  them  lying  to 
gether;  but  on  that  sand,  and  crowded  into  such 
a  regular  nursery,  none  of  them  could  have 
escaped  the  vision  of  any  foe  with  eyes.  As  I 
have  said,  the  eggs  of  the  skimmer,  as  the 
clutches  were  more  scattered,  were  much  more 
difficult  to  make  out,  on  the  shell  beaches. 
Concealing  coloration  has  been  a  survival  fac 
tor  only  as  regards  a  minority,  and  is  respon 
sible  for  the  precise  coloration  of  only  a  small 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      309 

minority,  of  adult  birds  and  mammals;  how 
much  and  what  part  it  plays,  and  in  what 
percentage  of  cases,  in  producing  the  colora 
tion  of  eggs,  is  a  subject  which  is  well  worth 
serious  study.  As  regards  most  of  these  sea- 
birds  which  nest  gregariously,  their  one  instinct 
for  safety  at  nesting  time  seems  to  be  to  choose 
a  lonely  island.  This  is  their  only,  and  suf 
ficient,  method  of  outwitting  their  foes  at  the 
crucial  period  of  their  lives. 

We  found  only  eggs  in  the  nurseries,  not 
young  birds.  In  each  nursery  there  were  al 
ways  a  number  of  terns  brooding  their  eggs, 
and  the  air  above  was  filled  with  a  ceaseless 
flutter  and  flashing  of  birds  leaving  their  nests 
and  returning  to  them  —  or  eggs,  rather,  for, 
speaking  accurately,  there  were  no  nests.  The 
sky  above  was  alive  with  the  graceful,  long- 
winged  things.  As  we  approached  the  nurseries 
the  birds  would  begin  to  leave.  If  we  halted 
before  the  alarm  became  universal,  those  that 
stayed  always  served  as  lures  to  bring  back 
those  that  had  left.  If  we  came  too  near,  the 
whole  party  rose  in  a  tumult  of  flapping  wings; 
and  when  all  had  thus  left  it  was  some  time  be 
fore  any  returned.  With  patience  it  was  quite 
possible  to  get  close  to  the  sitting  birds;  I 
noticed  that  in  the  heat  many  had  their  bills 


310     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

open.  Those  that  were  on  the  wing  flew  round 
and  round  us,  creaking  and  bleating,  and  often 
so  near  that  every  detail  of  form  and  color  was 
vivid  in  our  eyes.  The  immense  majority  were 
royal  terns,  big  birds  with  orange  beaks.  With 
them  were  a  very  few  Caspian  terns,  still  bigger, 
and  with  bright-red  beaks,  and  quite  a  number 
of  Cabot's  terns,  smaller  birds  with  yellow- 
tipped  black  beaks.  These  were  all  nesting 
together,  in  the  same  nurseries. 

It  has  been  said  on  excellent  authority  that 
terns  can  always  be  told  from  gulls  because, 
whereas  the  latter  carry  their  beaks  horizontally, 
the  terns  carry  their  bills  pointing  downward, 
"like  a  mosquito."  My  own  observations  do 
not  agree  with  this  statement.  When  hovering 
over  water  where  there  are  fish,  and  while 
watching  for  their  prey,  terns  point  the  bill 
downward,  just  as  pelicans  do  in  similar  cir 
cumstances;  just  as  gulls  often  do  when  they 
are  seeking  to  spy  food  below  them.  But 
normally,  on  the  great  majority  of  the  occasions 
when  I  saw  them,  the  terns,  like  the  gulls, 
carried  the  bill  in  the  same  plane  as  the  body. 

On  another  island  we  found  a  small  colony 
of  Forster's  tern;  and  we  saw  sooty  terns,  and 
a  few  of  the  diminutive  least  terns.  But  I 
was  much  more  surprised  to  find  on,  or  rather 


THE  MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES     311 

over,  one  island  a  party  of  black  terns.  As 
these  are  inland  birds,  most  of  which  at  this 
season  are  breeding  around  the  lakes  of  our 
Northwestern  country,  I  was  puzzled  by  their 
presence.  Still  more  puzzling  was  it  to  come 
across  a  party  of  turnstones,  with  males  in  full, 
brightly  varied  nuptial  dress,  for  turnstones 
during  the  breeding  season  live  north  of  the 
arctic  circle,  in  the  perpetual  sunlight  of  the 
long  polar  day.  On  the  other  hand,  a  couple 
of  big  oyster-catchers  seemed,  and  were,  en 
tirely  in  place;  they  are  striking  birds  and 
attract  attention  at  a  great  distance.  We  saw 
dainty  Wilson's  plover  with  their  chicks,  and 
also  semipalmated  sandpipers. 

On  the  morning  of  the  12th  we  returned  to 
Pass  Christian.  I  was  very  glad  to  have  seen 
this  bird  refuge.  With  care  and  protection  the 
birds  will  increase  and  grow  tamer  and  tamer, 
until  it  will  be  possible  for  any  one  to  make 
trips  among  these  reserves  and  refuges,  and  to 
see  as  much  as  we  saw,  at  even  closer  quarters. 
No  sight  more  beautiful  and  more  interesting 
could  be  imagined. 

I  am  far  from  disparaging  the  work  of  the 
collector  who  is  also  a  field  naturalist.  On  the 
contrary,  I  fully  agree  with  Mr.  Joseph  Grin- 
nell's  recent  plea  for  him.  His  work  is  indis- 


312     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

pensable.  It  is  far  more  important  to  protect 
his  rights  than  to  protect  those  of  the  sports 
man;  for  the  serious  work  of  the  collector  is 
necessary  in  order  to  prevent  the  scientific 
study  of  ornithology  from  lapsing  into  mere 
dilettanteism  indulged  in  as  a  hobby  by  men 
and  women  with  opera-glasses.  Moreover, 
sportsmen  also  have  their  rights,  and  it  is  folly 
to  sacrifice  these  rights  to  mere  sentimentality 
—  for,  of  course,  sentimentality  is  as  much  the 
antithesis  and  bane  of  healthy  sentiment  as 
bathos  is  of  pathos.  If  thoroughly  protected, 
any  bird  or  mammal  would  speedily  increase 
in  numbers  to  such  a  degree  as  to  drive  man 
from  the  planet;  and  of  recent  years  this  has 
been  signally  proved  by  actual  experience  as 
regards  certain  creatures,  notably  as  regards 
the  wapiti  in  the  Yellowstone  (where  the  prime 
need  now  is  to  provide  for  the  annual  killing 
of  at  least  five  thousand),  and  to  a  less  extent 
as  regards  deer  in  Vermont. 

But  as  yet  these  cases  are  rare  exceptions. 
As  yet  with  the  great  majority  of  our  most  in 
teresting  and  important  wild  birds  and  beasts 
the  prime  need  is  to  protect  them,  not  only  by 
laws  limiting  the  open  season  and  the  size  of 
the  individual  bag,  but  especially  by  the  crea 
tion  of  sanctuaries  and  refuges.  And,  while 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      313 

the  work  of  the  collector  is  still  necessary,  the 
work  of  the  trained  faunal  naturalist,  who  is 
primarily  an  observer  of  the  life  histories  of 
the  wild  things,  is  even  more  necessary.  The 
progress  made  in  the  United  States,  of  recent 
years,  in  creating  and  policing  bird  refuges,1 
has  been  of  capital  importance. 

At  nightfall  of  the  third  day  of  our  trip, 
when  we  were  within  sight  of  Fort  Jackson 
and  of  the  brush  and  low  trees  which  here  grow 
alongside  the  Mississippi,  we  were  joined  by 
Mr.  M.  L.  Alexander,  the  president  of  the  Con 
servation  Commission,  on  the  commission's  boat 
Louisiana.  He  was  more  than  kind  and  cour 
teous,  as  were  all  my  Louisiana  friends.  He 
and  Mr.  Miller  told  me  much  of  the  work  of 
the  commission;  work  not  only  of  the  utmost 
use  to  Louisiana,  but  of  almost  equal  conse 
quence  to  the  rest  of  the  country,  if  only  for 
the  example  set. 

The  commission  was  not  founded  until  1912, 
yet  it  has  already  accomplished  a  remarkable 
amount  along  many  different  lines.  The  work 
of  reforestation  of  great  stretches  of  denuded, 
and  at  present  worthless,  pine  land  has  begun; 
work  which  will  turn  lumbering  into  a  perma 
nent  Louisiana  industry  by  making  lumber  a 

1  See  Appendix  B. 


314     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

permanent  crop  asset,  like  corn  or  wheat,  only 
taking  longer  to  mature  —  an  asset  which  it 
is  equally  important  not  to  destroy.  In  taking 
care  of  the  mineral  resources  a  stop  has  been 
put  to  waste  as  foolish  as  it  was  criminal;  for 
example,  a  gas-well  which  had  flowed  to  waste 
until  six  million  dollars'  worth  of  gas  had  been 
lost  was  stopped  and  stored  at  the  cost  of  five 
thousand  one  hundred  dollars.  The  oysters  are 
now  farmed  and  husbanded,  the  beds  being 
leased  in  such  fashion  that  there  is  a  steady  im 
provement  of  the  product.  Louisiana  is  pecu 
liarly  rich  in  fish,  and  a  policy  has  been  inau 
gurated  which,  if  persevered  in,  wTill  make  the 
paddle-fish  industry  as  important  as  the  stur 
geon  fishery  is  in  Russia.  Not  only  do  the 
waters  of  Louisiana  now  belong  to  the  State, 
but  also  the  land  under  the  water,  this  last 
proving  in  practise  an  admirable  provision. 
Some  three  hundred  thousand  acres  of  game 
reserves  and  wild-life  refuges  (mostly  unin 
habitable  by  man)  have  now  been  established. 
These  have  largely  been  gifts  to  the  State  by 
wise  and  generous  private  individuals  and  cor 
porations,  the  chief  donors  being  Messrs.  Ed 
ward  A.  Mcllhenny  and  Charles  Willis  Ward, 
Mrs.  Russell  Sage,  and  the  Rockefeller  Founda 
tion.  The  Conservation  Commission  has  ac- 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      315 

cepted  the  gifts,  and  is  taking  care  of  the  re 
serves  and  refuges  through  its  State  wardens, 
with  the  result  that  wild  birds  of  many  kinds, 
including  even  the  wary  geese,  which  come 
down  as  winter  visitants  by  the  hundred  thou 
sand,  have  become  very  tame,  and  many  beauti 
ful  birds  which  were  on  the  verge  of  extinction 
are  now  re-established  and  increasing  in  num 
bers.  These  reserves,  which  lie  for  the  most 
part  in  the  low  country  along  the  coast,  are 
west  of  the  Mississippi. 

Job  had  just  come  from  a  visit  to  the  private 
reserve  of  Edward  A.  Mcllhenny  on  Avery 
Island.  It  is  the  most  noteworthy  reserve  in 
the  country.  It  includes  four  thousand  acres, 
and  is  near  the  Ward-Mcllhenny  reserve,  which 
they  have  given  to  the  State  —  a  king's  gift! 
Avery 's  Island  is  very  beautiful.  A  great, 
shallow,  artificial  lake,  surrounded  by  dwellings, 
fields,  lawns,  a  railroad,  and  ox-wagon  road,  does 
not  seem  an  ideal  home  for  herons;  but  it  has 
proved  such  under  the  care  of  Mr.  Mcllhenny. 
He  started  the  reserve  twenty  years  ago  with 
eight  snowy  herons.  Now  it  contains  about 
forty  thousand  herons  of  several  species.  Com 
plete  freedom  from  molestation  has  rendered 
the  birds  extraordinarily  tame.  The  beautiful 
snow-white  lesser  egret,  which  had  been  almost 


316     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

exterminated  by  the  plume-hunters,  nourishes 
by  the  thousand;  the  greater  egret  has  been 
bothered  so  by  the  smaller  one  that  it  has  retired 
before  it;  its  heronries  are  now  to  be  found 
mainly  in  other  parts  of  the  protected  region. 
Many  other  kinds  of  heron,  and  many  water 
fowl,  literally  throng  the  place.  Ducks  winter 
by  the  thousand,  and,  most  unexpectedly,  some 
even  of  the  northern  kinds,  like  the  gadwall, 
now  stay  to  breed.  Most  of  these  birds  are  so 
tame  that  there  is  little  difficulty  in  taking 
photographs  of  them. 

The  Audubon  societies,  and  all  similar  or 
ganizations,  are  doing  a  great  work  for  the 
future  of  our  country.  Birds  should  be  saved 
because  of  utilitarian  reasons;  and,  moreover, 
they  should  be  saved  because  of  reasons  uncon 
nected  with  any  return  in  dollars  and  cents. 
A  grove  of  giant  redwoods  or  sequoias  should 
be  kept  just  as  we  keep  a  great  and  beautiful 
cathedral.  The  extermination  of  the  passenger- 
pigeon  meant  that  mankind  was  just  so  much 
poorer;  exactly  as  in  the  case  of  the  destruction 
of  the  cathedral  at  Rheims.  And  to  lose  the 
chance  to  see  frigate-birds  soaring  in  circles 
above  the  storm,  or  a  file  of  pelicans  winging 
their  way  homeward  across  the  crimson  after 
glow  of  the  sunset,  or  a  myriad  terns  flashing 


THE   MISSISSIPPI  RESERVES      317 

in  the  bright  light  of  midday  as  they  hover  in 
a  shifting  maze  above  the  beach --why,  the 
loss  is  like  the  loss  of  a  gallery  of  the  master 
pieces  of  the  artists  of  old  time. 


CHAPTER  XI 
A  CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

IN  1915  I  spent  a  little  over  a  fortnight  on 
a  private  game  reserve  in  the  province  of 
Quebec.  I  had  expected  to  enjoy  the  great 
northern  woods,  and  the  sight  of  beaver,  moose, 
and  caribou;  but  I  had  not  expected  any  hunt 
ing  experience  worth  mentioning.  Neverthe 
less,  toward  the  end  of  my  trip,  there  befell 
me  one  of  the  most  curious  and  interesting  ad 
ventures  with  big  game  that  have  ever  befallen 
me  during  the  forty  years  since  I  first  began  to 
know  the  life  of  the  wilderness. 

In  both  Canada  and  the  United  States  the 
theory  and  indeed  the  practise  of  preserving 
wild  life  on  protected  areas  of  land  have  made 
astonishing  headway  since  the  closing  years  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  These  protected  areas, 
some  of  very  large  size,  come  in  two  classes. 
First,  there  are  those  which  are  public  property, 
where  the  protection  is  given  by  the  State. 
Secondly,  there  are  those  where  the  ownership 
and  the  protection  are  private. 

By  far  the  most  important,  of  course,  are  the 

318 


A  CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        319 

public  preserves.  These  by  their  very  exist 
ence  afford  a  certain  measure  of  the  extent  to 
which  democratic  government  can  justify  it 
self.  If  in  a  given  community  unchecked  pop 
ular  rule  means  unlimited  waste  and  destruction 
of  the  natural  resources  —  soil,  fertility,  water- 
power,  forests,  game,  wild-life  generally  —  which 
by  right  belong  as  much  to  subsequent  genera 
tions  as  to  the  present  generation,  then  it  is 
sure  proof  that  the  present  generatiqn  is  not 
yet  really  fit  for  self-control,  that  it  is  not  yet 
really  fit  to  exercise  the  high  and  responsible 
privilege  of  a  rule  which  shall  be  both  by  the 
people  and  for  the  people.  The  term  "for  the 
people"  must  always  include  the  people  unborn 
as  well  as  the  people  now  alive,  or  the  demo 
cratic  ideal  is  not  realized.  The  only  way  to 
secure  the  chance  for  hunting,  for  the  enjoy 
ment  of  vigorous  field-sports,  to  the  average 
man  of  small  means,  is  to  secure  such  enforced 
game  laws  as  will  prevent  anybody  and  every 
body  from  killing  game  to  a  point  which  means 
its  diminution  and  therefore  ultimate  extinction. 
Only  in  this  way  will  the  average  man  be  able 
to  secure  for  himself  and  his  children  the  op 
portunity  of  occasionally  spending  his  yearly 
holiday  in  that  school  of  hardihood  and  self- 
reliance — the  chase.  New  Brunswick,  Maine, 


320     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

and  Vermont  during  the  last  generation  have 
waked  up  to  this  fact.  Moose  and  deer  in  New 
Brunswick  and  Maine,  deer  in  Vermont,  are  so 
much  more  plentiful  than  they  were  a  generation 
ago  that  young  men  of  sufficient  address  and 
skill  can  at  small  cost  spend  a  holiday  in  the 
woods,  or  on  the  edge  of  the  rough  backwoods 
farm  land,  and  be  reasonably  sure  of  a  moose 
or  a  deer.  To  all  three  commonwealths  the 
game  is  now  a  real  asset  because  each  moose 
or  deer  alive  in  the  woods  brings  in,  from  the 
outside,  men  who  spend  among  the  inhabitants 
much  more  than  the  money  value  of  the  dead 
animal;  and  to  the  lover  of  nature  the  presence 
of  these  embodiments  of  the  wild  vigor  of  life 
adds  immensely  to  the  vast  majesty  of  the 
forests. 

In  Canada  there  are  many  great  national 
reserves;  and  much --by  no  means  all  —  of 
the  wilderness  wherein  shooting  is  allowed,  is 
intelligently  and  faithfully  protected,  so  that 
the  game  does  not  diminish.  In  the  summer  of 
1915  we  caught  a  glimpse  of  one  of  these  great 
reserves,  that  including  the  wonderful  moun 
tains  on  the  line  of  the  Canadian  Pacific,  from 
Banff  to  Lake  Louise,  and  for  many  leagues 
around  them.  The  naked  or  snow-clad  peaks, 
the  lakes,  the  glaciers,  the  evergreen  forest 


A  CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        321 

shrouding  the  mountainsides  and  valleys,  the 
clear  brooks,  the  wealth  of  wild  flowers,  make  up 
a  landscape  as  lovely  as  it  is  varied.  Here  the 
game  —  bighorn  and  white  goat-antelope,  moose, 
wapiti,  and  black- tail  deer  and  white-tail  deer  - 
flourish  unmolested.  The  flora  and  fauna  are 
boreal,  but  boreal  in  the  sense  that  the  Rocky 
Mountains  are  boreal  as  far  south  as  Arizona; 
the  crimson  paint-brush  that  colors  the  hill 
sides,  the  water-ousel  in  the  rapid  torrents - 
these  and  most  of  the  trees  and  flowers  and  birds 
suggest  those  of  the  mountains  which  are  riven 
asunder  by  the  profound  gorges  of  the  Colorado 
rather  than  those  which  dwell  among  the  lower 
and  more  rounded  Eastern  hill-masses  from 
which  the  springs  find  their  way  into  the  rivers 
that  flow  down  to  the  North  Atlantic.  Around 
these  and  similar  great  nurseries  of  game,  the 
hunting  is  still  good  in  places;  although  there 
has  been  a  mistaken  lenity  shown  in  permitting 
the  Indians  to  butcher  mountain-sheep  and 
deer  to  the  point  of  local  extermination,  and 
although,  as  is  probably  inevitable  in  all  new 
communities,  the  game  laws  are  enforced  chiefly 
at  the  expense  of  visiting  sportsmen,  rather 
than  at  the  expense  of  the  real  enemies  of  the 
game,  the  professional  meat  and  hide  hunters 
who  slaughter  for  the  profit. 


A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

In  Eastern  Canada,  as  in  the  Eastern  United 
States,  there  has  been  far  less  chance  than  in 
the  West  to  create  huge  governmental  game  re 
serves.  But  there  has  been  a  positive  increase  of 
the  big  game  during  the  last  two  or  three  decades. 
This  is  partly  due  to  the  creation  and  enforce 
ment  of  wise  game  laws  —  although  here  also 
it  must  be  admitted  that  in  some  of  the  Prov 
inces,  as  in  some  of  the  States,  the  alien  sports 
man  is  judged  with  Rhadamanthine  severity, 
while  the  home  offenders,  and  even  the  home  In 
dians,  are  but  little  interfered  with.  It  would  be 
well  if  in  this  matter  other  communities  copied 
the  excellent  example  of  Maine  and  New  Bruns 
wick.  In  addition  to  the  game  laws,  a  large 
part  is  played  in  Canadian  game  preservation 
by  the  hunting  and  fishing  clubs.  These  clubs 
have  policed,  and  now  police  many  thousands 
of  square  miles  of  wooded  wilderness,  worth 
less  for  agriculture;  and  in  consequence  of  this 
policing  the  wild  creatures  of  the  wilderness 
have  thriven,  and  in  some  cases  have  multi 
plied  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  on  these  club 
lands. 

In  September,  1915,  I  visited  the  Tourilli 
Club,  as  the  guest  of  an  old  friend,  Doctor 
Alexander  Lambert,  a  companion  of  previous 
hunting  trips  in  the  Louisiana  cane-brakes,  in 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        323 

the  Rockies,  on  the  plains  bordering  the  Red 
River  of  the  south,  and  among  the  Bad  Lands 
through  which  the  Little  Missouri  flows.  The 
Tourilli  Club  is  an  association  of  Canadian 
and  American  sportsmen  and  lovers  of  the 
wilderness.  The  land,  leased  from  the  govern 
ment  by  the  club,  lies  northwest  of  the  at 
tractive  Old  World  city  of  Quebec --the  most 
distinctive  city  north  of  the  Mexican  border, 
now  that  the  Creole  element  in  New  Orleans 
has  been  almost  swamped.  The  club  holds 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  square  miles  along 
the  main  branches  and  the  small  tributaries  of 
the  Saint  Anne  River,  just  north  of  the  line  that 
separates  the  last  bleak  farming  land  from  the 
forest.  It  is  a  hilly,  almost  mountainous  region, 
studded  with  numerous  lakes,  threaded  by  rapid, 
brawling  brooks,  and  covered  with  an  unbroken 
forest  growth  of  spruce,  balsam,  birch  and 
maple. 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  I  left  Quebec  I 
camped  in  a  neat  log  cabin  by  the  edge  of  a 
little  lake.  I  had  come  in  on  foot  over  a  rough 
forest  trail  with  my  two  guides  or  porters. 
They  were  strapping,  good-humored  French 
Canadians,  self-respecting  and  courteous,  whose 
attitude  toward  their  employer  was  so  much 
like  that  of  Old  World  guides  as  to  be  rather  in- 


324     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

teresting  to  a  man  accustomed  to  the  absolute 
and  unconscious  democracy  of  the  Western  cow 
camps  and  hunting  trails.  One  vital  fact  im 
pressed  me  in  connection  with  them  as  in  con 
nection  with  my  Spanish-speaking  and  Portu 
guese-speaking  friends  in  South  America.  They 
were  always  fathers  of  big  families  as  well  as 
sons  of  parents  with  big  families;  the  big  family 
was  normal  to  their  kind,  just  as  it  was  normal 
among  the  men  and  women  I  met  in  Brazil, 
Argentina,  Chile,  Uruguay,  and  Paraguay,  to  a 
degree  far  surpassing  what  is  true  of  native 
Americans,  Australians,  and  English-speaking 
Canadians.  If  the  tendencies  thus  made  evi 
dent  continue  to  work  unchanged,  the  end  of 
the  twentieth  century  will  witness  a  reversal 
in  the  present  positions  of  relative  dominance, 
in  the  new  and  newest  worlds,  held  respectively 
by  the  people  who  speak  English,  and  the 
people  who  speak  the  three  Latin  tongues. 
Darwin,  in  the  account  of  his  famous  voyage, 
in  speaking  of  the  backwardness  of  the  coun 
tries  bordering  the  Plate  River,  dwells  on  the 
way  they  lag  behind,  in  population  and  material 
development,  compared  to  the  English  settlers 
in  Australia  and  North  America.  Were  he 
alive  now,  the  development  of  the  countries 
around  Buenos  Ayres  and  Montevideo  would 


A  CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        325 

make  him  revise  his  judgment.  And,  whatever 
may  be  the  case  in  the  future,  so  far  this  material 
development  has  not,  as  in  the  English-speak 
ing  world  and  in  old  France,  been  accompanied 
by  a  moral  change  which  threatens  complete 
loss  of  race  supremacy  because  of  sheer  dwin 
dling  in  the  birth-rate.  The  men  and  women  of 
Quebec,  Brazil,  and  Argentina  are  still  primarily 
fathers  and  mothers;  and  unless  this  is  true  of 
a  race  it  neither  can  nor  ought  to  permanently 
prosper.  The  atrophy  of  the  healthy  sexual 
instinct  is  in  its  effects  equally  destructive 
whether  it  be  due  to  licentiousness,  asceticism, 
coldness,  or  timidity;  whether  it  be  due  to  cal 
culated  self-indulgence,  love  of  ease  and  com 
fort,  or  absorption  in  worldly  success  on  the 
part  of  the  man,  or,  on  the  part  of  the  woman, 
to  that  kind  of  shrieking  "feminism,"  the  an 
tithesis  of  all  worth  calling  womanly,  which 
gives  fine  names  to  shirking  of  duty,  and  to 
the  fear  of  danger  and  discomfort,  and  actually 
exalts  as  praiseworthy  the  abandonment  or 
subordination  by  women  of  the  most  sacred 
and  vitally  important  of  the  functions  of  woman 
hood.  It  is  not  enough  that  a  race  shall  be  com 
posed  of  good  fighters,  good  workers,  and  good 
breeders;  but,  unless  the  qualities  thus  in 
dicated  are  present  in  the  race  foundation,  then 


326     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

the  superstructure,  however  seemingly  imposing, 
will  topple.  As  I  watched  my  French  guides 
prepare  supper  I  felt  that  they  offered  fine  stuff 
out  of  which  to  make  a  nation. 

Beside  the  lake  an  eagle-owl  was  hooting  from 
the  depths  of  the  spruce  forest;  hoohoo- 
h-o-o-o  —  hoohoo.  From  the  lake  itself  a  loon, 
floating  high  on  the  water,  greeted  me  with 
eerie  laughter.  A  sweetheart-sparrow  sang  a 
few  plaintive  bars  among  the  alders.  I  felt 
as  if  again  among  old  friends. 

Next  day  we  tramped  to  the  comfortable  camp 
of  the  president  of  the  club,  Mr.  Glen  Ford 
McKinney.  Half-way  there  Lambert  met  me; 
and  for  most  of  the  distance  he,  or  one  of  the 
guides,  carried  a  canoe,  as  the  route  consisted 
of  lakes  connected  by  portages,  sometimes  a 
couple  of  miles  long.  When  we  reached  the 
roomy  comfortable  log  houses  on  Lake  McKin 
ney,  at  nightfall,  we  were  quite  ready  for  our 
supper  of  delicious  moose  venison.  Lambert, 
while  fishing  in  his  canoe,  a  couple  of  days 
previously,  had  killed  a  young  bull  as  it  stood 
feeding  in  a  lake,  and  for  some  days  moose 
meat  was  our  staple  food.  After  that  it  was 
replaced  by  messes  of  freshly  caught  trout, 
and  once  or  twice  by  a  birch-partridge.  Mrs. 
Lambert  was  at  the  camp,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs. 


A  CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        327 

McKinney  joined  us  there.  A  club  reserve 
such  as  this,  with  weather-proof  cabins  scat 
tered  here  and  there  beside  the  lakes,  offers 
the  chance  for  women  of  the  outdoors  type, 
no  less  than  for  men  no  longer  in  their  first 
youth,  to  enjoy  the  life  of  the  wonderful  north 
ern  wilderness,  and  yet  to  enjoy  also  such  sub 
stantial  comforts  as  warmth,  dry  clothes,  and 
good  food  at  night,  after  a  hard  day  in  the 
open. 

Such  a  reserve  offers  a  fine  field  for  observa 
tion  of  the  life  histories  of  the  more  shy  and 
rare  wild  creatures  practically  unaffected  by 
man.  Many  persons  do  not  realize  how  com 
pletely  on  these  reserves  the  wild  life  is  led  under 
natural  conditions,  wholly  unlike  those  on  small 
artificial  reserves.  Most  wild  beasts  in  the  true 
wilderness  lead  lives  that  are  artificial  in  so 
far  as  they  are  primarily  conditioned  by  fear 
of  man.  In  wilderness  reserves  like  this,  on 
the  contrary,  there  is  so  much  less  dread  of 
human  persecution  that  the  lives  led  by  such 
beasts  as  the  moose,  caribou,  and  beaver  more 
closely  resemble  life  in  the  woods  before  the 
appearance  of  man.  As  an  example,  on  the 
Tourilli  game  reserve  wolves,  which  did  not 
appear  until  within  a  decade,  have  been  much 
more  destructive  since  then  than  men,  and  have 


328     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

more  profoundly  influenced  for  evil  the  lives 
of  the  other  wild  creatures. 

The  beavers  are  among  the  most  interesting 
of  all  woodland  beasts.  They  had  been  so 
trapped  out  that  fifteen  years  ago  there  were 
probably  not  a  dozen  individuals  left  on  the 
reserve.  Then  they  were  rigidly  protected. 
After  ten  years  they  had  increased  literally  a 
hundredfold.  At  the  end  of  that  time  trapping 
was  permitted  for  a  year;  hundreds  of  skins 
were  taken,  and  then  trapping  was  again  pro 
hibited. 

The  beaver  on  the  reserve  at  present  number 
between  one  and  two  thousand.  We  saw  their 
houses  and  dams  everywhere.  One  dam  was 
six  feet  high;  another  dam  was  built  to  the 
height  of  about  a  foot  and  a  half,  near  one  of 
our  camping  places,  in  a  week's  time.  The 
architects  were  a  family  of  beavers;  some  of 
the  branches  bore  the  big  marks  of  the  teeth 
of  the  parent  beavers,  some  the  marks  of  the 
small  teeth  of  the  young  ones.  It  was  interest 
ing  to  see  the  dams  grow,  stones  being  heaped 
on  the  up-current  side  to  keep  the  branches  in 
place.  Frequently  we  came  across  the  animals 
themselves,  swimming  a  stream  or  lake,  and 
not  much  bothered  by  our  presence.  When 
left  unmolested  they  are  quite  as  much  diurnal 


A   CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        329 

as  nocturnal.  Again  and  again,  as  I  sat  hidden 
on  the  lake  banks,  beaver  swam  to  and  fro  close 
beside  me,  even  at  high  noon.  One,  which  was 
swimming  across  a  lake  at  sunset,  would  not 
dive  until  we  paddled  the  canoe  straight  for 
it  as  hard  as  we  could;  whereupon  it  finally 
disappeared  with  a  slap  of  its  tail.  Once  at 
evening  Lambert  pulled  his  canoe  across  the 
approach  to  a  house,  barring  the  way  to  the 
owner — a  very  big  beaver.  It  did  not  like  to 
dive  under  the  canoe,  and  swam  close  up  on 
the  surface,  literally  gritting  its  teeth,  and  now 
and  then  it  would  slap  the  water  with  its  tail, 
whereupon  the  heads  of  other  beaver  would 
pop  up  above  the  waters  of  the  lake. 

By  damming  the  outlets  of  some  of  the  lakes 
and  killing  the  trees  and  young  stuff  around  the 
edges,  the  beaver  on  this  reserve  had  destroyed 
some  of  the  favorite  haunts  of  the  moose.  We 
saw  the  old  and  new  houses  on  the  shores  of  the 
lakes  and  beside  the  streams;  some  of  them 
were  very  large,  taller  than  a  man,  and  twice 
as  much  across.  Some  of  the  old  dams,  at  the 
pond  outlets  and  across  the  streams,  had  be 
come  firm  causeways,  grown-up  with  trees. 
The  beaver  is  a  fecund  animal,  its  habits  are 
such  that  few  of  the  beasts  of  ravin  can  kill 
it  more  than  occasionally,  and  when  not  too 


330     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

murderously   persecuted   by   man   it   increases 
with  extraordinary  rapidity. 

This  is  primarily  due  to  the  character  of  its 
food.  The  forest  trees  themselves  furnish 
what  it  eats.  This  means  that  its  food  supply 
is  practically  limitless.  It  has  very  few  food 
rivals.  The  trunks  of  full-grown  trees  offer 
what  is  edible  to  a  most  narrowly  limited  num 
ber  of  vertebrates,  and  therefore  —  a  fact 
often  lost  sight  of  —  until  man  appears  on  the 
scene  forests  do  not  support  anything  like  the 
same  number  and  variety  of  large  beasts  as 
open,  grassy  plains.  There  are  tree-browsing 
creatures,  but  these  can  only  get  at  the  young 
growth;  the  great  majority  of  beasts  prefer 
prairies  or  open  scrub  to  thick  forest.  The 
open  plains  of  central  North  America  were 
thronged  with  big  game  to  a  degree  that  was 
never  true  of  the  vast  American  forests,  whether 
subarctic,  temperate,  or  tropical.  The  great 
game  regions  of  Africa  were  the  endless  dry 
plains  of  South  and  East  Africa,  and  not  the 
steaming  West  African  forests.  There  are,  of 
course,  some  big  mammals  that  live  exclusively 
on  low  plants  and  bushes  that  only  grow  in 
the  forest,  and  some  trees  at  certain  seasons 
yield  fruits  and  nuts  which  fall  to  the  ground; 
but,  speaking  generally,  an  ordinary  full-grown 


A   CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        331 

tree  of  average  size  yields  food  only  to  beasts 
of  exceptional  type,  of  which  the  most  con 
spicuous  in  North  America  are  the  tree-porcu 
pine  and  the  beaver.  Even  these  eat  only  the 
bark;  no  vertebrate,  so  far  as  I  know,  eats  the 
actual  wood  of  the  trunk. 

These  bark-eaters,  therefore,  have  almost  no 
food  rivals,  and  the  forest  furnishes  them  food 
in  limitless  quantities.  The  beaver  has  de 
veloped  habits  more  interesting  and  extraor 
dinary  than  those  of  any  other  rodent  —  in 
deed  as  interesting  as  those  of  any  other  beast 
-  and  its  ways  of  life  are  such  as  to  enable  it 
to  protect  itself  from  its  enemies,  and  to  insure 
itself  against  failure  of  food,  to  a  degree  very 
unusual  among  animals.  It  is  no  wonder  that, 
when  protected  against  man,  it  literally  swarms 
in  its  native  forests.  Its  dams,  houses,  and 
canals  are  all  wonderful,  and  on  the  Tourilli 
they  were  easily  studied.  The  height  at  which 
many  of  the  tree  trunks  had  been  severed  showed 
that  the  cutting  must  have  been  done  in  winter 
when  the  snow  was  deep  and  crusted.  One 
tree  which  had  not  fallen  showed  a  deep  spiral 
groove  going  twice  round  the  trunk.  Evi 
dently  the  snow  had  melted  faster  than  the 
beavers  worked;  they  were  never  able  to  make 
a  complete  ring,  although  they  had  gnawed 


332     A  BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

twice  around  the  tree,  and  finally  the  rising 
temperature  beat  the  teeth,  and  the  task  was 
perforce  abandoned. 

I  was  surprised  at  the  complete  absence  from 
the  Tourilli  of  the  other  northern  tree-eater  - 
bark-eater  --  the  porcupine.  Inquiry  developed 
the  fact  that  porcupines  had  been  exceedingly 
numerous  until  within  a  score  of  years  or  less. 
Then  a  mysterious  disease  smote  the  slow, 
clumsy,  sluggish  creatures,  and  in  the  course 
of  two  or  three  years  they  were  absolutely  ex 
terminated.  In  similar  fashion  from  some 
mysterious  disease  (or  aggregation  of  diseases, 
which  sometimes  all  work  with  virulence  when 
animals  become  too  crowded)  almost  all  the 
rabbits  in  the  reserve  died  off  some  six  years 
ago.  In  each  case  it  was  a  universally,  or  well- 
nigh  universally,  fatal  epidemic,  following  a 
period  during  which  the  smitten  animals  had 
possessed  good  health  and  had  flourished  and 
increased  greatly  in  spite  of  the  flesh-eaters 
that  preyed  on  them.  In  some  vital  details 
the  cases  differed.  Hares,  compared  to  por 
cupines,  are  far  more  prolific,  far  more  active, 
and  with  far  more  numerous  foes;  and  they 
also  seem  to  be  much  more  liable  to  these 
epidemics,  although  this  may  be  merely  be 
cause  they  so  much  more  quickly  increase  to 


A   CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        333 

the  point  that  seems  to  invite  the  disease.  The 
porcupines  are  rather  unsocial,  and  are  so  le 
thargic  in  their  movements  that  the  infection 
took  longer  to  do  its  full  work.  But  this  work 
was  done  so  thoroughly  that  evidently  the  entire 
race  of  porcupines  over  a  large  tract  of  country 
was  exterminated.  Porcupines  have  few  foes 
that  habitually  prey  on  them,  although  it  is 
said  that  there  is  an  exception  in  the  shape  of  the 
pekan  -  -  the  big,  savage  sable,  inappropriately 
called  fisher  by  the  English-speaking  woods 
men.  But  they  breed  so  slowly  (for  rodents) 
and  move  about  so  little  that  when  exter 
minated  from  a  district  many  years  elapse  be 
fore  they  again  begin  to  spread  throughout  it. 
The  rabbits,  on  the  contrary,  move  about  so 
much  that  infectious  diseases  spread  with  ex 
traordinary  rapidity  and  they  are  the  habitual 
food  of  every  fair-sized  bird  and  beast  of 
prey,  but  their  extraordinary  fecundity  enables 
them  rapidly  to  recover  lost  ground.  As  re 
gards  these  northern  wood-rabbits,  and  doubt 
less  other  species  of  hares,  it  is  evident  that  their 
beast  and  bird  foes,  who  prey  so  freely  on  their 
helplessness,  nevertheless  are  incompetent  to 
restrain  the  overdevelopment  of  the  species. 
Their  real  foes,  their  only  real  foes,  are  the 
minute  organisms  that  produce  the  diseases 


334      A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

which  at  intervals  sweep  off  their  swarming  num 
bers.  The  devastation  of  these  diseases,  whether 
the  agents  spreading  them  are  insects  or  still 
smaller,  microscopic  creatures,  is  clearly  proved 
in  the  case  of  these  North  American  rabbits 
and  porcupines;  probably  it  explains  the  tem 
porary  and  local  extermination  of  the  Labra 
dor  meadow-mice  after  they  have  risen  to  the 
culminating  crest  of  one  of  those  "waves  of 
life"  described  by  Doctor  Cabot.  It  has 
ravaged  among  big  African  ruminants  on  an 
even  more  extensive  scale  than  among  these 
North  American  rodents.  Doubtless  such  dis 
ease-devastation  has  been  responsible  for  the 
extinction  of  many,  many  species  in  the  past; 
and  where  for  any  cause  species  and  individuals 
became  crowded  together,  or  there  was  an  in 
crease  in  moisture  and  change  in  temperature, 
so  that  the  insect  carriers  of  disease  became 
more  numerous,  the  extinction  might  easily 
befall  more  than  one  species. 

Of  course,  such  epidemic  disease  is  only  one 
of  many  causes  that  may  produce  such  exter 
mination  or  reduction  in  numbers.  More  effi 
cient  food  rivals  may  be  a  factor;  just  as  sheep 
drive  out  cattle  from  the  same  pasturage,  and 
as,  in  Australia,  rabbits  drive  out  sheep.  Or 
animal  foes  may  be  a  cause.  Fifteen  years 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        335 

ago,  in  the  Tourilli,  caribou  were  far  more 
plentiful  than  moose.  Moose  have  steadily 
increased  in  numbers.  But  some  seven  years 
ago  wolves,  of  which  none  had  been  seen  in 
these  woods  for  half  a  century,  made  their  ap 
pearance.  They  did  not  seriously  molest  the 
full-grown  moose  (nor  the  black  bears),  although 
they  occasionally  killed  moose  calves,  and  very 
rarely,  when  in  a  pack,  an  adult,  but  they  warred 
on  all  the  other  animals,  including  the  lucivees 
when  they  could  catch  them  on  the  ice  in  winter. 
They  followed  the  caribou  unceasingly,  killing 
many,  and  in  consequence  the  caribou  are  now 
far  less  common.  Barthelmy  Lirette,  the  most 
experienced  hunter  and  best  observer  among 
the  guides  —  even  better  than  his  brother 
Arthur  —  told  me  that  the  wolves  usually  made 
no  effort  to  assail  the  moose,  and  that  never 
but  once  had  he  heard  of  their  killing  a  grown 
moose.  But  they  followed  any  caribou  they 
came  across,  big  or  little.  Once  on  snow-shoes 
he  had  tracked  such  a  chase  all  day  long.  A 
single  wolf  had  followed  a  caribou  for  twenty- 
five  miles  before  killing  it.  Evidently  the 
wolf  deliberately  set  about  tiring  his  victim 
so  that  it  could  not  resist.  In  the  snow  the 
caribou  sank  deep.  The  wolf  ran  lightly.  His 
tracks  showed  that  he  had  galloped  whenever 


336      A   BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

the  caribou  had  galloped,  and  walked  behind 
it  when  it  became  too  tired  to  run,  and  then 
galloped  again  when  under  the  terror  of  his 
approach  the  hunted  thing  once  more  flailed 
its  fading  strength  into  flight.  Its  strength 
was  utterly  gone  when  its  grim  follower  at  last 
sprang  on  it  and  tore  out  its  life. 

An  arctic  explorer  once  told  me  that  on  a  part 
of  the  eastern  coast  of  Greenland  he  found  on 
one  visit  plenty  of  caribou  and  arctic  foxes. 
A  few  years  later  he  returned.  Musk-oxen 
had  just  come  into  the  district,  and  wolves  fol 
lowed  them.  The  musk-ox  is  helpless  in  the 
presence  of  human  hunters,  much  more  help 
less  than  caribou,  and  can  exist  only  in  the  ap 
palling  solitudes  where  even  arctic  man  can 
not  live;  but  against  wolves,  its  only  other  foes, 
its  habits  of  gregarious  and  truculent  self-de 
fense  enable  it  to  hold  its  own  as  the  caribou 
cannot.  The  wolves  which  were  hangers-on 
of  the  musk-ox  herds  speedily  killed  or  drove 
out  both  the  foxes  and  the  caribou  on  this 
stretch  of  Greenland  coast,  and  as  a  result  two 
once  plentiful  species  were  completely  replaced 
by  two  other  species,  which  change  also  doubt 
less  resulted  in  other  changes  in  the  smaller 
wild  life. 

Here  we  can  explain  the  reason  for  the  change 


A   CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        337 

as  regards  three  of  the  animals,  inasmuch  as 
this  change  was  ultimately  conditioned  by  the 
movements  of  the  fourth,  the  musk-ox.  But 
we  know  nothing  of  the  cause  which  produced 
the  musk-ox  migration,  which  migration  re 
sulted  in  such  unsettling  of  life  conditions  for 
the  wolves,  caribous,  and  foxes  of  this  one 
locality.  Neither  can  we  with  our  present 
knowledge  explain  the  causes  which  in  Maine 
and  New  Brunswick  during  the  last  thirty  or 
forty  years  have  brought  about  a  diminution 
of  the  caribou,  although  there  has  been  an  in 
crease  in  the  number  of  moose  and  deer;  wolves 
cannot  have  produced  this  change,  for  they  kill 
the  deer  easier  than  the  caribou.  Field  natural 
ists  have  in  such  questions  an  ample  opportunity 
for  work  of  the  utmost  interest.  Doubtless 
they  can  in  the  future  give  us  complete  or  par 
tial  explanations  of  many  of  these  problems 
which  are  at  present  insoluble.  In  any  event 
these  continuous  shiftings  of  faunas  at  the 
present  day  enable  us  to  form  some  idea  of  the 
changes  which  must  have  occurred  on  in 
numerable  occasions  during  man's  history  on 
this  planet.  Beyond  question  many  of  the 
faunas  which  seem  to  us  contemporary  when 
their  remains  are  found  associated  with  those 
of  prehistoric  man  were  really  successive  and 


338     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

may  have  alternated  again  and  again  before 
one  or  both  finally  disappeared.  Life  is  rarely 
static,  rarely  in  a  state  of  stable  equilibrium. 
Often  it  is  in  a  condition  of  unstable  equilib 
rium,  with  continual  oscillations  one  way  and 
the  other.  More  often  still,  while  there  are 
many  shifts  to  and  fro,  the  general  tendency 
of  change  is  with  slow  steadiness  in  one  di 
rection. 

After  a  few  days  the  Lamberts  and  I  shifted 
to  Lambert's  home  camp;  an  easy  two  days' 
journey,  tramping  along  the  portage  trails  and 
paddling  across  the  many  lakes.  It  was  a  very 
comfortable  camp,  by  a  beautiful  lake.  There 
were  four  log  cabins,  each  water-tight  and  with 
a  stove;  and  the  largest  was  in  effect  a  sitting- 
room,  with  comfortable  chairs  and  shelves  of 
books.  They  stood  in  a  sunny  clearing.  The 
wet,  dense  forest  was  all  around,  the  deep  mossy 
ground  spangled  with  bright-red  partridge-ber 
ries.  Behind  the  cabins  was  a  small  potato 
patch.  Wild  raspberries  were  always  encroach 
ing  on  this  patch,  and  attracted  the  birds  of  the 
neighborhood,  including  hermit  and  olive-back 
thrushes,  both  now  silent.  Chickadees  were  in 
the  woods,  and  woodpeckers  —  the  arctic,  the 
hairy,  and  the  big  log-cock  —  drummed  on  the 
dead  trees.  One  mid-afternoon  a  great  gray 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        339 

owl  called  repeatedly,  uttering  a  short  loud 
sound  like  that  of  some  big  wild  beast.  In 
front  of  the  main  cabin  were  four  graceful 
mountain  ashes,  brilliant  with  scarlet  berry 
clusters.  On  a  neighboring  lake  Coleman  Dray- 
ton  had  a  camp;  the  view  from  it  across  the 
lake  was  very  beautiful.  He  killed  a  moose 
on  the  lake  next  to  his  and  came  over  to  dinner 
with  us  the  same  evening. 

On  the  way  to  Lambert's  camp  I  went  off 
by  myself  for  twenty-four  hours,  with  my  two 
guides,  Arthur  Lirette,  one  of  the  game  wardens 
of  the  club,  and  Odilon  Genest.  Arthur  was 
an  experienced  woodsman,  intelligent  and  re 
sponsible,  and  with  the  really  charming  manners 
that  are  so  much  more  common  among  men  of 
French  or  Spanish  blood  than  among  ourselves. 
Odilon  was  a  strong  young  fellow,  a  good  pad- 
dler  and  willing  worker.  I  wished  to  visit  a 
lake  which  moose  were  said  to  frequent.  We 
carried  our  canoe  thither. 

After  circling  the  lake  in  the  canoe  without 
seeing  anything,  we  drew  it  ashore  among  some 
bushes  and  sat  down  under  a  clump  of  big 
spruces  to  watch.  Although  only  partially  con 
cealed,  we  were  quiet;  and  it  is  movement  that 
attracts  the  eyes  of  wild  things.  A  beaver 
house  was  near  by  and  the  inmates  swam  about 


340     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

not  thirty  feet  from  us;  and  scaup-ducks  and 
once  a  grown  brood  of  dusky  mallard  drifted 
and  swam  by  only  a  little  farther  off.  The 
beaver  kept  slapping  the  water  with  their 
broad  trowel-tails,  evidently  in  play;  where 
they  are  wary  they  often  dive  without  slapping 
the  water.  No  bull  appeared,  but  a  cow  moose 
with  two  calves  came  down  to  the  lake,  di 
rectly  opposite  us,  at  one  in  the  afternoon  and 
spent  two  hours  in  the  water.  Near  where  the 
three  of  them  entered  the  lake  was  a  bed  of 
tall,  coarse  reed-grass  standing  well  above  the 
water.  Earlier  in  the  season  this  had  been 
grazed  by  moose,  but  these  three  did  not  touch 
it.  The  cow,  having  entered  the  water,  did  not 
leave.  She  fed  exclusively  with  her  head  under 
water.  Wading  out  until  only  the  ridge  of  her 
back  was  above  the  surface,  and  at  times  find 
ing  that  the  mud  bothered  even  her  long  legs, 
she  plunged  her  huge  homely  head  to  the  bot 
tom,  coming  up  with  between  her  jaws  big 
tufts  of  dripping  bottom-grass  -  -  the  moose 
grass  —  or  the  roots  and  stems  of  other  plants. 
After  a  time  she  decided  to  change  her  station, 
and,  striking  off  into  deep  water,  she  swam  half 
a  mile  farther  down  the  lake.  She  swam  well 
and  powerfully,  but  sunk  rather  deep  in  the 
water,  only  her  head  and  the  ridge  of  her  withers 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        341 

above  it.  She  continued  to  feed,  usually  broad 
side  to  me,  some  three  hundred  and  fifty  yards 
off;  her  big  ears  flopped  forward  and  back,  and 
her  long  snout,  with  the  protuberant  nostrils, 
was  thrust  out  as  she  turned  from  time  to  time 
to  look  or  smell  for  her  calves.  The  latter  had 
separated  at  once  from  the  mother,  and  spent 
only  a  little  time  in  the  water,  appearing  and 
disappearing  among  the  alders,  and  among  the 
berry-bushes  on  a  yielding  bog  of  pink  and 
gray  moss.  Once  they  played  together  for  a 
moment,  and  then  one  of  them  cantered  off 
for  a  few  rods. 

When  moose  calves  go  at  speed  they  usually 
canter.  By  the  time  they  are  yearlings,  how 
ever,  they  have  adopted  the  trot  as  their  usual 
gait.  When  grown  they  walk,  trot  when  at 
speed,  and  sometimes  pace;  but  they  gallop  so 
rarely  that  many  good  observers  say  that  they 
never  gallop  or  canter.  This  is  too  sweeping, 
however.  I  have  myself,  as  will  be  related, 
seen  a  heavy  old  bull  gallop  for  fifty  yards 
when  excited,  and  I  have  seen  the  tracks  where 
a  full-grown  cow  or  young  bull  galloped  for  a 
longer  distance.  Lambert  came  on  one  close 
up  in  a  shallow  lake,  and  in  its  fright  it  gal 
loped  ashore,  churning  through  the  mud  and 
water.  In  very  deep  snow  one  will  sometimes 


342     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

gallop  or  bound  for  a  dozen  leaps,  and  under 
sudden  fright  from  an  enemy  near  by  even  the 
biggest  moose  will  sometimes  break  into  a  gal 
lop  which  may  last  for  several  rods.  More 
often,  even  under  such  circumstances,  the 
animal  trots  off;  and  the  trot  is  its  habitual, 
and,  save  in  exceptional  circumstances,  its  only, 
rapid  gait,  even  when  charging. 

As  the  cow  and  her  young  ones  stood  in  the 
water  or  on  the  bank  it  was  impossible  not  to 
be  struck  by  the  conspicuously  advertising  char 
acter  of  the  coloration.  The  moose  is  one  of 
the  few  animals  of  which  the  body  is  inversely 
countershaded,  being  black  save  for  the  brown 
ish  or  grayish  of  the  back.  The  huge  black 
mass  at  once  attracts  the  eye,  and  the  whitish 
or  grayish  legs  are  also  strikingly  visible.  The 
bright-red  summer  coat  of  the  white-tail  deer 
is,  if  anything,  of  even  more  advertising  quality; 
but  the  huge  bulk  of  a  moose,  added  to  its  black 
ness,  makes  it  the  most  conspicuous  of  all  our 
beasts. 

Moose  are  naturally  just  as  much  diurnal  as 
nocturnal.  We  found  them  visiting  the  lakes 
at  every  hour  of  the  day.  They  are  so  fond  of 
water  as  to  be  almost  amphibious.  In  the 
winter  they  feed  on  the  buds  and  twig  tips  of 
young  spruce  and  birch  and  swamp-maple;  and 


A   CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        343 

when  there  is  no  snow  they  feed  freely  on 
various  ground  plants  in  the  forest;  but  for 
over  half  the  year  they  prefer  to  eat  the  grasses 
and  other  plants  which  grow  either  above  or 
under  the  water  in  the  lakes.  They  easily  wade 
through  mud  not  more  than  four  feet  deep, 
and  take  delight  in  swimming.  But  until  this 
trip  I  did  not  know  that  moose,  while  swim 
ming,  dived  to  get  grass  from  the  bottom.  Mr. 
McKinney  told  me  of  having  seen  this  feat 
himself.  The  moose  was  swimming  to  and 
fro  in  a  small  lake.  He  plunged  his  head 
beneath  water,  and  then  at  once  raised  it,  look 
ing  around,  evidently  to  see  if  any  enemy  were 
taking  advantage  of  his  head  being  concealed 
to  approach  him.  Then  he  plunged  his  head 
down  again,  threw  his  rump  above  water,  and 
dived  completely  below  the  surface,  coming  up 
with  tufts  of  bottom-grass  in  his  mouth.  He 
repeated  this  several  times,  once  staying  down 
and  out  of  sight  for  nearly  half  a  minute. 

After  the  cow  moose  left  the  water  she  spent 
an  hour  close  to  the  bank,  near  the  inlet.  We 
came  quite  near  to  her  in  the  canoe  before  she 
fled;  her  calves  were  farther  in  the  woods.  It 
was  late  when  we  started  to  make  our  last 
portage;  a  heavy  rain-storm  beat  on  us,  speed 
ily  drenching  us,  and  the  darkness  and  the 


344     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

driving  downpour  made  our  walk  over  the 
rough  forest  trail  one  of  no  small  difficulty. 
Next  day  we  went  to  Lambert's  camp. 

Some  ten  miles  northeast  of  Lambert's  camp 
lies  a  stretch  of  wild  and  mountainous  coun 
try,  containing  many  lakes,  which  has  been 
but  seldom  visited.  A  good  cabin  has  been 
built  on  one  of  the  lakes.  A  couple  of  years 
ago  Lambert  went  thither,  but  saw  nothing, 
and  Coleman  Drayton  was  there  the  same 
summer;  Arthur,  my  guide,  visited  the  cabin 
last  spring  to  see  if  it  was  in  repair;  otherwise 
the  country  had  been  wholly  undisturbed.  I 
determined  to  make  a  three  days'  trip  to  it, 
with  Arthur  and  Odilon.  We  were  out  of  meat 
and  I  desired  to  shoot  something  for  the  table. 
My  license  permitted  me  to  kill  one  bull  moose. 
It  also  permitted  me  to  kill  two  caribou,  of 
either  sex;  but  Lambert  felt,  and  I  heartily 
agreed  with  him,  that  no  cow  ought  to  be  shot. 

We  left  after  breakfast  one  morning.  Be 
fore  we  had  been  gone  twenty-five  minutes  I 
was  able  to  obtain  the  wished-for  fresh  meat. 
Our  course,  as  usual,  lay  along  a  succession  of 
lakes  connected  by  carries,  or  portages.  We 
were  almost  at  the  end  of  the  first  portage 
when  we  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  caribou  feeding 
in  the  thick  woods  some  fifty  yards  to  the 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        345 

right  of  our  trail.  It  was  eating  the  streamers 
of  gray-green  moss  which  hung  from  the  dead 
lower  branches  of  the  spruces.  It  was  a  year 
ling  bull.  At  first  I  could  merely  make  out  a 
small  patch  of  its  flank  between  two  tree  trunks, 
and  I  missed  it  —  fortunately,  for,  if  wounded, 
it  would  probably  have  escaped.  At  the  re 
port,  instead  of  running,  the  foolish  young  bull 
shifted  his  position  to  look  at  us;  and  with  the 
next  shot  I  killed  him.  While  Arthur  dressed 
him  Odilon  returned  to  camp  and  brought  out 
a  couple  of  men.  We  took  a  shoulder  with  us 
for  our  provision  and  sent  the  rest  back  to 
camp.  Hour  after  hour  we  went  forward.  We 
paddled  across  the  lakes.  Between  them  the 
trails  sometimes  led  up  to  and  down  from  high 
divides;  at  other  times  they  followed  the 
courses  of  rapid  brooks  which  brawled  over 
smooth  stones  under  the  swaying,  bending 
branches  of  the  alders.  Off  the  trail  fallen 
logs  and  bowlders  covered  the  ground,  and  the 
moss  covered  everything  ankle-deep  or  knee- 
deep. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  we  reached  the  cabin. 
The  lake,  like  most  of  the  lakes  thereabouts, 
was  surrounded  by  low,  steep  mountains, 
shrouded  in  unbroken  forest.  The  light-green 
domes  of  the  birches  rose  among  the  sombre 


346      A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

spruce  spires;  on  the  mountain  crests  the 
pointed  spruces  made  a  serrated  line  against 
the  sky.  Arthur  and  I  paddled  off  across  the 
lake  in  the  light  canoe  we  had  been  carrying. 
We  had  hardly  shoved  off  from  shore  before 
we  saw  a  caribou  swimming  in  the  middle  of 
the  lake.  It  was  a  young  cow,  and  doubtless 
had  never  before  seen  a  man.  The  canoe  much 
excited  its  curiosity.  A  caribou,  thanks  prob 
ably  to  its  peculiar  pelage,  is  a  very  buoyant 
swimmer.  Unlike  the  moose,  this  caribou  had 
its  whole  back,  and  especially  its  rump,  well 
out  of  water;  the  short  tail  was  held  erect, 
and  the  white  under-surface  glinted  whenever 
the  swimmer  turned  away  from  us.  At  first, 
however,  it  did  not  swim  away,  being  too  much 
absorbed  in  the  spectacle  of  the  canoe.  It  kept 
gazing  toward  us  with  its  ears  thrown  forward, 
wheeling  to  look  at  us  as  lightly  and  readily 
as  a  duck.  We  passed  it  at  a  distance  of  some 
seventy-five  yards,  whereupon  it  took  fright 
and  made  off,  leaving  a  wake  like  a  paddle- 
wheel  steamer  and,  when  it  landed,  bouncing 
up  the  bank  with  a  great  splashing  of  water 
and  cracking  of  bushes.  A  caribou  swims  even 
better  than  a  moose,  but  whereas  a  moose  not 
only  feeds  by  preference  in  the  water,  but  half 
the  time  has  its  head  under  water,  the  caribou 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        347 

feeds  on  land,  although  occasionally  cropping 
water-grass  that  stands  above  the  surface. 

We  portaged  beside  a  swampy  little  stream 
to  the  next  lake  and  circled  it  in  the  canoe. 
Silently  we  went  round  every  point,  alert  to 
find  what  the  bay  beyond  might  hold.  But  we 
saw  nothing;  it  was  night  when  we  returned. 
As  we  paddled  across  the  lake  the  stars  were 
glorious  overhead  and  the  mysterious  land 
scape  shimmered  in  the  white  radiance  of  the 
moonlight.  Loons  called  to  one  another,  not 
only  uttering  their  goblin  laughter,  but  also 
those  long-drawn,  wailing  cries,  which  seem  to 
hold  all  the  fierce  and  mournful  loneliness  of 
the  northern  wastes.  Then  we  reached  camp, 
and  feasted  on  caribou  venison,  and  slept 
soundly  on  our  beds  of  fragrant  balsam  boughs. 

Next  morning,  on  September  19,  we  started 
eastward,  across  a  short  portage,  perhaps  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  long,  beside  which  ran  a 
stream,  a  little  shallow  river.  At  the  farther 
end  of  the  portage  we  launched  the  canoe  in  a 
large  lake  hemmed  in  by  mountains.  The 
lake  twisted  and  turned,  and  was  indented  by 
many  bays.  A  strong  breeze  was  blowing. 
Arthur  was  steersman,  Odilon  bowsman,  while 
I  sat  in  the  middle  with  my  Springfield  rifle. 
We  skirted  the  shores,  examining  each  bay. 


348      A   BOOK-LOVER'S   HOLIDAYS 

Half  an  hour  after  starting,  as  we  rounded  a 
point,  we  saw  the  huge  black  body  and  white 
shovel  antlers  of  a  bull  moose.  He  was  close 
to  the  alders,  wading  in  the  shallow  water  and 
deep  mud  and  grazing  on  a  patch  of  fairly  tall 
water-grass.  So  absorbed  was  he  that  he  did 
not  notice  us  until  Arthur  had  skilfully  brought 
the  canoe  to  within  eighty  yards  of  him.  Then 
he  saw  us,  tossed  his  great  an  tiered  head  aloft, 
and  for  a  moment  stared  at  us,  a  picture  of 
burly  majesty.  He  stood  broadside  on,  and  a 
splendid  creature  he  was,  of  towering  stature, 
the  lord  of  all  the  deer  tribe,  as  stately  a  beast 
of  the  chase  as  walks  the  round  world. 

The  waves  were  high,  and  the  canoe  danced 
so  on  the  ripple  that  my  first  bullet  went 
wild,  but  with  the  second  I  slew  the  mighty 
bull. 

We  had  our  work  cut  out  to  get  the  bull  out 
of  the  mud  and  on  the  edge  of  the  dry  land. 
The  antlers  spread  fifty-two  inches.  Some 
hours  were  spent  in  fixing  the  head,  taking  off 
the  hide,  and  cutting  up  the  carcass.  Our 
canoe  was  loaded  to  its  full  capacity  with 
moose  meat  when  we  started  toward  the  be 
ginning  of  the  portage  leading  from  the  south 
eastern  corner  of  the  lake  toward  the  Lamberts' 
camp.  Here  we  landed  the  meat,  putting  cool 


• 


From  a  photograph  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  and 'Arthur  Lirette  with  antlers  of 
moose  shot  September  19,  1915. 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        349 

inoss  over  it,  and  left  it  to  be  called  for  on  our 
way  back,  on  the  morrow. 

It  was  shortly  after  three  when  we  again 
pushed  off  in  the  canoe,  and  headed  for  the 
western  end  of  the  lake,  for  the  landing  from 
which  the  portage  led  to  our  cabin.  It  had 
been  a  red-letter  day,  of  the  ordinary  hunting 
red-letter  type.  I  had  no  conception  that  the 
real  adventure  still  lay  in  front  of  us. 

When  half  a  mile  from  the  landing  we  saw 
another  big  bull  moose  on  the  edge  of  the  shore 
ahead  of  us.  It  looked  and  was  —  if  anything  — 
even  bigger-bodied  than  the  one  I  had  shot  in 
the  morning,  with  antlers  almost  as  large  and 
rather  more  palmated.  We  paddled  up  to  with 
in  a  hundred  yards  of  it,  laughing  and  talking, 
and  remarking  how  eager  we  would  have  been 
if  we  had  not  already  got  our  moose.  At  first 
it  did  not  seem  to  notice  us.  Then  it  looked  at 
us  but  paid  us  no  further  heed.  We  were 
rather  surprised  at  this  but  paddled  on  past 
it,  and  it  then  walked  along  the  shore  after  us. 
We  still  supposed  that  it  did  not  realize  what 
we  were.  But  another  hundred  yards  put  us 
to  windward  of  it.  Instead  of  turning  into  the 
forest  when  it  got  our  wind,  it  merely  bristled 
up  the  hair  on  its  withers,  shook  its  head,  and 
continued  to  walk  after  the  canoe,  along  the 


350     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

shore.  I  had  heard  of  bull  moose,  during  the 
rut,  attacking  men  unprovoked,  if  the  men 
were  close  up,  but  never  of  anything  as  wanton 
and  deliberate  as  this  action,  and  I  could  hardly 
believe  the  moose  meant  mischief,  but  Arthur 
said  it  did;  and  obviously  we  could  not  land 
with  the  big,  evil-looking  beast  coming  for  us 
—  and,  of  course,  I  was  most  anxious  not  to 
have  to  shoot  it.  So  we  turned  the  canoe 
round  and  paddled  on  our  back  track.  But  the 
moose  promptly  turned  and  followed  us  along 
the  shore.  We  yelled  at  him,  and  Odilon  struck 
the  canoe  with  his  paddle,  but  with  no  effect. 
After  going  a  few  hundred  yards  we  again 
turned  and  resumed  our  former  course;  and  as 
promptly  the  moose  turned  and  followed  us, 
shaking  his  head  and  threatening  us.  He 
seemed  to  be  getting  more  angry,  and  evidently 
meant  mischief.  We  now  continued  our  course 
until  we  were  opposite  the  portage  landing, 
and  about  a  hundred  yards  away  from  it;  the 
water  was  shallow  and  we  did  not  wish  to  ven 
ture  closer,  lest  the  moose  might  catch  us  if 
he  charged.  When  he  came  to  the  portage 
trail  he  turned  up  it,  sniffing  at  our  footsteps 
of  the  morning,  and  walked  along  it  into  the 
woods;  and  we  hoped  that  now  he  would  be 
come  uneasy  and  go  off.  After  waiting  a  few 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        351 

minutes  we  paddled  slowly  toward  the  land 
ing,  but  before  reaching  it  we  caught  his  loom 
in  the  shadow,  as  he  stood  facing  us  some  dis 
tance  down  the  trail.  As  soon  as  we  stopped 
he  rushed  down  the  trail  toward  us,  coming 
in  to  the  lake;  and  we  backed  hastily  into  deep 
water.  He  vented  his  rage  on  a  small  tree, 
which  he  wrecked  with  his  antlers.  We  con 
tinued  to  paddle  round  the  head  of  the  bay, 
and  he  followed  us;  we  still  hoped  we  might 
get  him  away  from  the  portage,  and  that  he 
would  go  into  the  woods.  But  when  we  turned 
he  followed  us  back,  and  thus  went  to  and  fro 
with  us.  Where  the  water  was  deep  near  shore 
we  pushed  the  canoe  close  in  to  him,  and  he 
promptly  rushed  down  to  the  water's  edge, 
shaking  his  head,  and  striking  the  earth  with 
his  fore  hoofs.  We  shouted  at  him,  but  with 
no  effect.  As  he  paraded  along  the  shore  he 
opened  his  mouth,  lolling  out  his  tongue;  and 
now  and  then  when  he  faced  us  he  ran  out  his 
tongue  and  licked  the  end  of  his  muzzle  with 
it.  Once,  with  head  down,  he  bounded  or  gal 
loped  round  in  a  half  circle;  and  from  time  to 
time  he  grunted  or  uttered  a  low,  menacing 
roar.  Altogether  the  huge  black  beast  looked 
like  a  formidable  customer,  and  was  evidently 
in  a  most  evil  rage  and  bent  on  man-killing. 


352     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

For  over  an  hour  he  thus  kept  us  from  the 
shore,  running  to  meet  us  wherever  we  tried 
to  go.  The  afternoon  was  waning,  a  cold 
wind  began  to  blow,  shifting  as  it  blew.  He 
was  not  a  pleasant-looking  beast  to  meet  in 
the  woods  in  the  dusk.  We  were  at  our  wits' 
ends  what  to  do.  At  last  he  turned,  shook  his 
head,  and  with  a  flourish  of  his  heels  galloped 
-  not  trotted  —  for  fifty  yards  up  beside  the 
little  river  which  paralleled  the  portage  trail. 
I  called  Arthur's  attention  to  this,  as  he  had 
been  telling  me  that  a  big  bull  never  galloped. 
Then  the  moose  disappeared  at  a  trot  round 
the  bend.  We  waited  a  few  minutes,  cautiously 
landed,  and  started  along  the  trail,  watching 
to  see  if  the  bull  was  lying  in  wait  for  us;  Ar 
thur  telling  me  that  if  he  now  attacked  us  I 
must  shoot  him  at  once  or  he  would  kill  some 
body. 

A  couple  of  hundred  yards  on  the  trail  led 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  little  river.  As  we 
reached  this  point  a  smashing  in  the  brush  be 
yond  the  opposite  bank  caused  us  to  wheel; 
and  the  great  bull  came  headlong  for  us,  while 
Arthur  called  to  me  to  shoot.  With  a  last  hope 
of  frightening  him  I  fired  over  his  head,  with 
out  the  slightest  effect.  At  a  slashing  trot  he 
crossed  the  river,  shaking  his  head,  his  ears 


A   CURIOUS   EXPERIENCE        353 

back,  the  hair  on  his  withers  bristling.  "Tirez, 
m'sieu,  tirez;  vite,  vite!"  called  Arthur,  and 
when  the  bull  was  not  thirty  feet  off  I  put  a 
bullet  into  his  chest,  in  the  sticking  point.  It 
was  a  mortal  wound,  and  stopped  him  short; 
I  fired  into  his  chest  again,  and  this  wound,  too, 
would  by  itself  have  been  fatal.  He  turned 
and  recrossed  the  stream,  falling  to  a  third 
shot,  but  as  we  approached  he  struggled  to 
his  feet,  grunting  savagely,  and  I  killed  him  as 
he  came  toward  us. 

I  was  sorry  to  have  to  kill  him,  but  there 
was  no  alternative.  As  it  was,  I  only  stopped 
him  in  the  nick  of  time,  and  had  I  not  shot 
straight  at  least  one  of  us  would  have  paid 
forfeit  with  his  life  in  another  second.  Even 
in  Africa  I  have  never  known  anything  but  a 
rogue  elephant  or  buffalo,  or  an  occasional 
rhinoceros,  to  attack  so  viciously  or  with  such 
premeditation  when  itself  neither  wounded  nor 
threatened. 

Gentle-voiced  Arthur,  in  his  delightful  habi 
tant's  French,  said  that  the  incident  was  "pas 
mal  curieux."  He  used  "pas  mal"  as  a  super 
lative.  The  first  time  he  used  it  I  was  com 
pletely  bewildered.  It  was  hot  and  sultry,  and 
Arthur  remarked  that  the  day  was  "pas  mal 
mort."  How  the  day  could  be  "not  badly 


354     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

dead"  I  could  not  imagine,  but  the  proper 
translation  turned  out  to  be  "a  very  lifeless 
day,"  which  was  true. 

On  reaching  Lambert's  camp,  Arthur  and 
Odilon  made  affidavit  to  the  facts  as  above  set 
forth,  and  this  affidavit  I  submitted  to  the  sec 
retary  of  mines  and  fisheries  of  Quebec,  who 
approved  what  I  had  done. 

On  the  day  following  that  on  which  we  killed 
the  two  bulls  we  went  back  to  Lambert's  home 
camp.  While  crossing  one  lake,  about  the 
middle  of  the  forenoon,  a  bull  moose  chal 
lenged  twice  from  the  forest-clad  mountain  on 
our  right.  We  found  a  pawing-place,  a  pit 
where  one  —  possibly  more  than  one  —  bull 
had  pawed  up  the  earth  and  thrashed  the 
saplings  roundabout  with  its  antlers.  The  place 
smelled  strongly  of  urine.  The  whole  of  the 
next  day  was  spent  in  getting  in  the  meat, 
skins,  and  antlers. 

I  do  not  believe  that  this  vicious  bull  moose 
had  ever  seen  a  man.  I  have  never  heard  of 
another  moose  acting  with  the  same  determina 
tion  and  perseverance  in  ferocious  malice;  it 
behaved,  as  I  have  said,  like  some  of  the  rare  vi 
cious  rogues  among  African  elephants,  buffaloes, 
and  rhinoceroses.  Bull  moose  during  the  rut 
are  fierce  animals,  however,  and,  although  there 


A   CURIOUS  EXPERIENCE        355 

is  ordinarily  no  danger  whatever  in  shooting 
them,  several  of  my  friends  have  been  resolutely 
charged  by  wounded  moose,  and  I  know  of, 
and  have  elsewhere  described,  one  authentic 
case  where  the  hunter  was  killed.  A  boy  carry 
ing  mail  through  the  woods  to  the  camp  of  a 
friend  of  mine  was  forced  to  climb  a  tree  by  a 
bull  which  threatened  him.  My  friend  Pride, 
of  Island  Falls,  Maine,  was  charged  while  in  a 
canoe  at  night,  by  a  bull  moose  which  he  had 
incautiously  approached  too  near,  and  the 
canoe  was  upset.  If  followed  on  snow-shoes  in 
the  deep  snow,  or  too  closely  approached  in  its 
winter  yard,  it  is  not  uncommon  for  a  moose 
to  charge  when  its  pursuer  is  within  a  few  yards. 
Once  Arthur  was  charged  by  a  bull  which  was 
in  company  with  a  cow.  He  was  in  a  canoe, 
at  dusk,  in  a  stream,  and  the  bull  rushed  into 
the  water  after  him,  while  he  paddled  hard 
to  get  away;  but  the  cow  left,  and  the  bull 
promptly  followed  her.  In  none  of  these  cases, 
however,  did  the  bull  act  with  the  malice  and 
cold-blooded  purposefulness  shown  by  the  bull 
I  was  forced  to  kill. 

Two  or  three  days  later  I  left  the  woods. 
The  weather  had  grown  colder.  The  loons  had 
begun  to  gather  on  the  larger  lakes  in  prepara 
tion  for  their  southward  flight.  The  nights 


356     A  BOOK-LOVER'S  HOLIDAYS 

were  frosty.  Fall  was  in  the  air.  Once  there 
was  a  flurry  of  snow.  Birch  and  maple  were 
donning  the  bravery  with  which  they  greet  the 
oncoming  north;  crimson  and  gold  their  ban 
ners  flaunted  in  the  eyes  of  the  dying  year. 


Antlers  of  moose  shot  September  19, 1915,  with  Springfield 
rifle  No.  6000,  Model  1903. 

This  rifle,  now  a  retired  veteran,  is  not  heavy  enough  for  steady  use  on  heavy  game; 
but  it  is  so  handy  and  accurate,  has  such  penetration,  and  keeps  in  such  good  order 
that  it  has  been  my  chief  hunting-rifle  for  the  last  dozen  years  on  three  continents,  and 
has  repeatedly  killed  heavy  game.  With  it  I  have  shot  some  three  hundred  head  of  all 
kinds,  including  the  following: 

Lion,  hyena,  elephant,  rhinoceros  (square-mouthed  and  hook-nosed),  hippopotamus, 
zebras  of  two  kinds,  wart-hog,  giraffe,  giant  eland,  common  eland,  roan  antelope,  oryx, 
wildebeest,  topi,  white-withered  lech  we,  waterbucks,  hartebeests,  kobs,  impalla,  gerenuk, 
gazelles,  reedbucks,  bushbucks,  klipspringer,  oribis,  duikers,  steinbok,  dikdik,  monkeys. 

Jaguar,  tapir,  big  peccary,  giant  ant-eater,  capybara,  wood-deer,  monkey. 

Cougar,  black  bear,  moose,  caribou,  white-tail  deer. 

Crocodile,  cayman,  python. 

Ostrich,  bustard,  wild  turkey,  crane,  pelican,  maribou,  ibis,  whale-head  stork,  jabiru 
stork,  guinea-fowl,  francolin. 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  A 

The  frontispiece  I  owe  to  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Theodore 
Pitman,  a  fellow  Harvard  student  of  Archie's,  whom  we 
met  on  Buckskin  Mountain;  being  both  a  hunter  and  a 
lover  of  the  picturesque,  he  was  as  much  impressed  as 
we  were  by  the  scene  when  a  cougar  stood  in  a  pine, 
with  the  Grand  Canyon  as  a  background.  The  photo 
graph  at  the  end  of  the  book  is  by  Doctor  Alexander 
Lambert,  and  the  tail-piece  is  from  a  photograph  by  him. 

I  had  been  told  by  old  hunters  that  black  bears  would 
sometimes  attack  moose  calves,  and  in  one  instance,  in 
the  Rockies,  my  informant  described  to  me  how  a  big 
grizzly,  but  a  few  weeks  out  of  its  den  in  spring,  attacked 
and  slew  full-grown  moose.  I  was  not  surprised  at  the 
latter  statement,  having  myself  come  across  cattle- 
killing  grizzlies;  but  I  wondered  at  a  black  bear,  which 
is  not  much  of  a  beast  of  prey,  venturing  to  meddle  with 
the  young  of  so  formidable  a  fighter  as  a  moose.  How 
ever,  it  is  true.  Recently  my  nephew  Hall  Roosevelt, 
who  was  working  at  Dawson  City,  went  on  a  moose  hunt 
in  the  valley  of  the  Yukon.  One  night  a  moose  cow 
passed  by  the  camp,  having  first  swum  a  stream  in  front 
of  the  camp.  She  was  followed  at  some  little  distance 
by  a  calf.  The  latter  halted  near  the  camp.  Suddenly 
a  black  bear,  with  a  tremendous  crashing  of  branches, 
came  with  a  rush  through  the  bushes,  and  seized  the 
calf;  although  it  was  driven  off,  it  had  with  its  teeth  so 
injured  the  spine  of  the  calf  that  they  were  obliged  to 
shoot  the  latter. 

On  a  hunt  in  the  Northern  Rockies,  Archie  met  a  man 
who  had  two  dogs,  an  ordinary  track-hound  and  a  Rus- 

359 


360  APPENDIX  A 

sian  wolfhound.  One  day  they  came  across  a  white 
goat,  and  before  the  slow  creature  could  reach  the  prec 
ipice  the  dogs  overtook  and  bayed  it.  The  track-hound 
merely  jumped  to  and  fro,  baying;  but  the  wolfhound 
rushed  straight  in  and  caught  the  goat  by  the  neck  on 
one  side;  whereupon  the  track-hound  seized  the  other 
side  of  the  neck.  Immediately,  with  two  wicked  back 
ward  thrusts  of  its  horns,  first  to  one  side,  then  to  the 
other,  the  goat  killed  both  its  assailants;  the  stiletto-like 
horns  were  driven  to  the  hilt  with  a  single  jab. 

The  attack  by  the  moose  upon  us,  mentioned  in  the 
final  chapter,  was  so  unusual  that  I  give  the  deposi 
tion  of  the  two  guides  who  were  with  me,  and  also  the 
report  of  the  senior  of  the  two,  the  game  warden,  in 
reference  to  the  occurrence.  They  are  as  follows: 

CANADA 

PROVINCE  OF  QUEBEC, 
DISTRICT  OF  QUEBEC, 

I,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  residing  at  Oyster-Bay  in  the 
United  States  of  America,  do  solemnly  declare  as  follows : 

That  I  have  just  returned  from  a  trip  in  the  Tourilli 
Club  limits  as  a  Guest  of  Dr.  Alexander  Lambert,  I  had 
the  ordinary  game  license  No.  25  issued  to  me  on  the 
6th  day  of  September  instant.  On  September  the  nine 
teenth,  on  Lake  Croche,  having  with  me  as  guides,  Arthur 
Lirette  and  Odilon  Genest,  I  killed  an  old  bull  moose  as 
authorized  by  the  license,  which  only  permitted  to  me 
to  kill  one  moose.  That  afternoon,  shortly  after  three 
o'clock,  we  were  returning  in  our  canoe  to  the  West  end 
of  the  Lake,  where  a  portage  trail  led  to  our  camp;  a 
small  stream  runs  besides  the  portage  trail;  when  half 
a  mile  from  our  proposed  landing  place,  we  saw  an  old 
bull  moose  on  the  shore.  We  paddled  up  to  within  a 


APPENDIX  A  361 

hundred  yards  of  it.  We  supposed  that  when  it  saw  us, 
it  would  take  to  the  woods.  It  however  walked  along 
the  edge  of  the  water  parallel  to  our  canoe,  looking  at 
us.  We  passed  it,  and  gave  it  our  wind,  thinking  this 
would  surely  cause  it  to  run.  But  it  merely  raised  its 
hair  on  its  withers  and  shook  its  horns  and  followed  after 
the  canoe.  We  shouted,  but  it  paid  no  heed  to  us;  we 
then  reversed  our  canoe  and  paddled  in  the  opposite  di 
rection;  but  following  us  and  threatening  us,  the  bull 
moose  turned  and  walked  the  same  way  we  did,  we  re 
newed  our  former  course,  and  thereupon  so  did  the  moose, 
where  the  water  was  shallow,  we  did  not  venture  near  it, 
but  where  the  water  was  deep,  we  went  within  fifty  yards; 
and  it  then  thrashed  the  branches  of  a  young  tree  with 
its  antlers,  and  pawed  the  earth  and  advanced  a  little 
way  into  the  water  towards  us,  walking  parallel  to  our 
canoe,  it  reached  the  portage  trail,  it  turned  and  walked 
up  this  trail  and  sniffed  at  our  morning's  tracks,  and  we 
supposed  it  had  fled;  but  on  nearing  the  landing  place, 
we  saw  it  standing  in  the  trail,  and  it  rushed  down  to 
wards  us  and  we  had  to  back  quickly  into  deep  water; 
we  paddled  on  round  the  shore,  hoping  it  would  get  tired 
and  go;  we  shouted  and  tried  to  frighten  it,  but  it  merely 
shook  its  head  and  stamped  on  the  ground  and  bounded 
in  a  circle;  then  it  swaggered  along  grunting,  it  kept 
its  mouth  open,  and  lolled  out  its  tongue  and  when  it 
turned  towards  us,  it  ran  its  tongue  over  its  muzzle, 
thus  it  accompanied  us  to  and  for  an  hour,  cutting  us  off 
whenever  we  tried  to  land;  then  it  turned,  and  went  up 
the  little  stream,  shaking  its  head,  and  galloping  or 
bounding  not  trotting,  for  fifty  yards,  it  disappeared 
around  a  bend  of  a  stream,  we  waited  a  few  minutes, 
and  landed,  and  started  along  the  portage  trail  for  camp, 
after  about  ten  minutes,  the  trail  approached  the  little 
stream;  then  the  moose  suddenly  appeared  rushing 


362  APPENDIX  A 

towards  us  at  a  slashing  trot,  its  hair  ruffled  and  tossing 
his  head. 

Arthur  Lirette,  who  is  one  of  the  game  wardens  of  the 
Tourilli  Club,  called  out  to  me  to  shoot,  or  the  moose 
would  do  us  mischief,  in  a  last  effort  to  frighten  it,  I  fired 
over  its  head,  but  it  paid  no  heed  to  this  and  rushed  over 
the  stream  at  us;  Arthur  again  called:  "Tirez,  monsieur, 
tirez,  vite,  vite,  vite,"  and  I  fired  into  the  moose's  chest, 
when  he  was  less  than  twenty  feet  away,  coming  full 
tilt  at  us,  grunting,  shaking  his  head,  his  ears  back  and 
his  hair  brindled;  the  shot  stopped  him;  I  fired  into  him 
again;  both  shots  were  fatal;  he  recrossed  the  little 
stream  and  fell  to  a  third  shot;  but  when  we  approached, 
he  rose,  grunting  and  started  towards  us.  I  killed  him. 
If  I  had  not  stopped  him,  he  would  have  certainly  killed 
one  or  more  of  our  party;  and  at  twenty  feet  I  had  to 
shoot  as  straight  as  I  knew  how,  or  he  would  have  reached 
us.  I  had  done  everything  possible  in  my  power  to  scare 
him  away  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  and  I  solemnly  de 
clare  that  I  killed  him  only  when  it  was  imperatively 
necessary,  in  order  to  prevent  the  loss  of  one  or  more  of 
our  own  lives,  and  I  make  this  solemn  declaration  con 
scientiously,  believing  it  to  be  true,  and  knowing  that 
it  is  of  the  same  force  and  effect  as  if  made  under  oath, 
and  by  virtue  of  the  Canada  EVIDENCE  ACT,  1893. 
(Signed)  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT, 

Declared  before  me,  this  24th  day  of  September  1915. 
(Signed)     E.  A.  PANET,  N.  P.  &  J.  P. 

TRUE  COPY, 

S.    DlJFAULT 

Deputy-Minister,  Department  Colonization, 
Mines  and  Fisheries,  Quebec. 


APPENDIX  A  363 

CANADA, 

PROVINCE  DE  QUEBEC, 
DISTRICT  DE  QUEBEC. 

Je,  Arthur  Lirette,  du  village  de  St-Raymond,  gardien 
du  Club  de  Peche  et  de  Chasse  Tourilli,  et  Je,  Odilon, 
Genest,  du  meme  lieu,  en  ma  qualite  de  guide,  declare 
sollennellement  que  les  faits  relates  ci-hauts  par  la  de 
claration  de  M.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  laquelle  nous  a  etc 
lue  et  traduite  en  francais  par  le  Notaire  E.  A.  Panet, 
de  St-Raymond,  que  cette  declaration  contient  la  verite 
dans  toute  son  etendue,  et  que  si  le  dit  Th.  Roosevelt 
n'avait  pas  tue  1'orignal  mentionne  par  lui,  que  nos  vies 
etaient  en  danger. 

Et  je  fais  cette  declaration  solennelle  consciencieuse- 
ment  la  croyant  vraie,  et  sachant  qu'elle  a  la  meme  force 
et  1'effet,  comme  si  elle  avait  ete  faite  sous  serment,  en 
vertu  de  "The  CANADA  EVIDENCE  ACT,  1893. 

Declare  devant  moi,  a  St-Raymond,  ce  24  erne  jour 
de  septembre,  1915. 

(Signe)     "ARTHUR  LIRETTE" 
"ODILON  GENEST," 
"E.  A.  PANET,  N.  P.  &  J.  Paix. 

VRAIE  COPIE, 

S.    DUFAULT 

Sous-Ministre,  Departement  de  la  Colonisation, 
des  Mines  et  des  Pecheries,  Quebec. 

COPY 

ST.  RAYMOND,  7  Octobre  1915 
Cher  Messieur 

Rapport 

Le  19  Septembre  1915  Mons.  Col.  Teodore  Rosevelt 
partant  pour  faire  la  chasse  a  Torignal  dans  le  club  Tourilli 


364  APPENDIX  A 

accompagne  d'Arthur  Lirette  et  Odilion  Genest  comme 
guides  vers  9  heures  du  matin  au  lac  Croche  du  Bras  du 
Nord  le  Col  Rosevelt  tua  un  original  dans  1'apres  midi 
voulant  sen  revenir  du  camp  du  lac  a  Tile  avec  la  tete 
et  le  panage  dans  le  canot  vers  les  3  heures  ^  nous  aper- 
cumes  un  autre  original  sur  le  bord  du  lac  nous  avons 
arreter  notre  canot  nous  1'avons  regarder  et  1'orignal  nous 
regardait  bien  ferocement  nous  etions  a  peu  pres  un 
arpent  de  distance  Ton  se  mit  a  ramer  pour  aller  au  por 
tage  du  lac  a  Tile  et  1'animal  se  mis  a  suive  sur  la  meme 
directions  de  nous  nous  avons  retourner  sur  nos  pas  une 
couple  d'arpent  et  1'orignal  fit  la  meme  chose  et  Ton 
pouvait  voir  qu'il  etait  bien  enrager  alors  Ton  se  mit  a  crier 
et  frapper  sur  le  canot  avec  les  avirons  afin  de  pouvoir 
1'effayer  au  contraire  il  se  mit  a  corne  les  arbres  du  bord 
du  lac  avec  le  poil  bien  droit  sur  le  dos  et  il  grattait  avec 
ses  pattes  dans  la  terre  ensuite  il  a  pris  le  portage  nous 
avons  rester  pour  10  minute  ensuit  nous  avon  ramer  pour 
se  rendre  au  portage  le  pensant  disparu  mais  Ton  ne  pu 
se  rendre  que  1'animal  revenait  de  nouveau  sur  nous  avons 
reculer  de  nouveau  sur  le  lac  et  1'orignal  est  rendu  dans 
Peau  jusquau  genoux  ensuite  se  mit  de  galopper  et  sauter 
et  a  traverser  la  petite  Riviere  et  se  mit  a  piocher  et 
Beugler  et  se  battre  avec  les  arbres  il  a  rester  5  minutes 
a  peu  pres  et  nous  avons  essayer  a  rapprocher  encore  sur 
terre  mais  imposible  car  l'animal  est  revenus  de  nouveau 
sur  le  bord  du  lac  faire  la  meme  chose  ensuite  il  pris  la 
petite  Riviere  en  trottant  a  peu  pres  200  pieds  et  il  disparu 
nous  avons  laisser  faire  pour  quelques  instant  ensuite 
nous  avons  approcher  sur  terre  au  petit  portage  cela 
faisait  que  n'on  avait  ete  garde  par  cet  animal  pour  une 
heure  a  une  heure  2/£  ensuite  j'ai  dis  a  Monsier  et  Odilion 
que  Ton  faisait  mieux  de  se  suivre  et  mener  autant  de 
bruit  possible  afin  de  1'effrayer  mais  1'orseque  n'on  eut 
fait  deux  arpents  dans  le  portage  j'ai  apercus  1'animal 


APPENDIX  A  365 

qui  semblait  nous  attendre  dans  le  petit  ruisseau  et  la 
voyant  qu'il  y  avait  bien  du  danger  pour  nous  tous  nous 
etions  a  une  distance  le  30  verges  de  lui  j'ai  avertit  Mon- 
sier  de  tirer  et  Mons.  a  pris  sa  carabine  et  a  tirer  en  1'air 
afin  de  lui  faire  bien  peur  et  de  pouvoir  le  chasser  mais 
au  contraire  en  entendant  le  coup  du  fusil  il  fonce  sur 
nous  j'ai  dit  a  Monsieur  Col.  tirer  bien  vite  et  il  a  tire 
de  nouveau  I'aninial  qui  etait  a  18  pieds  de  nous  a  peu  pres 
et  il  la  blesse  a  mort  il  a  fait  deux  sault  en  s'eloignant  de 
nous  mais  il  s'est  retourner  encore  sur  nous  et  j'ai  dis  au 
Colonel  de  tire  afin  de  le  mettre  a  terre  cela  faisait  une 
heure  et  demi  que  cet  animal  nous  gardait. 

ABTHUB  LIRETTE, 

Gardien. 


APPENDIX   B 

On  the  initiative  of  the  Audubon  Society  the  National 
Government,  when  I  was  President,  began  the  work  of 
creating  and  policing  bird  refuges  by  establishing  the  fol 
lowing  refuges: 

March  14,  1903.  Pelican  Island  Reservation.  Pelican 
Island  in  Indian  River,  Florida. 

October  4,  1904.  Breton  Island  Reservation.  Breton, 
Old  Harbor,  and  Free  Mason  Islands,  Louisiana. 

March  9,  1905.  Stump  Lake  Reservation.  Stump 
Lake  in  North  Dakota. 

October  10,  1905.  Siskiwit  Islands  Reservation.  Un- 
surveyed  islands  of  the  Siskiwit  group  on  the  south  side 
of  Isle  Royal  in  Lake  Superior,  Michigan. 

October  10,  1905.  Huron  Islands  Reservation.  Un- 
surveyed  islands  of  the  Huron  Islands  group,  Lake  Su 
perior,  Michigan. 

October  10,  1905.  Passage  Key  Reservation.  An  is 
land  near  the  mouth  of  Tampa  Bay,  Florida. 

February  10,  1906.  Indian  Key  Reservation.  An  is 
land  in  Tampa  Bay,  Florida. 

August  8,  1907.  Tern  Islands  Reservation.  All  the 
small  islets  commonly  called  mud  lumps  in  or  near  the 
mouths  of  the  Mississippi  River,  Louisiana. 

August  17,  1907.  Shell  Keys  Reservation.  Unsur- 
veyed  islets  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  about  three  and  one- 
half  miles  south  of  Marsh  Island,  Louisiana. 

October  14,  1907.  Three  Arch  Rocks  Reservation. 
Unsurveyed  islands  known  as  Three  Arch  Rocks  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean  off  the  coast  of  Oregon. 


APPENDIX  B  367 

October  23,  1907.  Flattery  Rocks  Reservation.  Is 
lands  lying  off  the  coast  of  Washington. 

October  23,  1907.  Copalis  Rock  Reservation.  Islands 
lying  off  the  coast  of  the  State  of  Washington  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean. 

October  23,  1907.  Quillayute  Needles  Reservation. 
Islands  lying  off  the  coast  of  Washington  in  the  Pacific 
Ocean. 

December  7,  1907.  East  Timbalier  Island  Reserva 
tion.  Small,  marshy  islands  commonly  known  as  East 
Timbalier  Island  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  south  of  Louisi 
ana. 

February  24,  1908.  Mosquito  Inlet  Reservation. 
Small  mangrove  and  salt-grass  islets,  shoals,  sand-bars, 
and  sand-spits  in  and  near  the  mouths  of  the  Halifax 
and  Hillsboro  Rivers,  Florida. 

April  6,  1908.  Tortugas  Keys  Reservation.  Group 
known  as  Dry  Tortugas  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  south 
of  Florida. 

August  8,  1908.  Key  West  Reservation.  Keys  and 
islands  of  the  Florida  Keys  group  near  Key  West,  Florida. 

August  8,  1908.  Klamath  Lake  Reservation.  Islands 
situated  in  Lower  Klamath  Lake  and  the  marsh  and 
swamp  lands  unsuitable  for  agricultural  purposes  in 
townships  thirty-nine,  forty,  and  forty-one  south,  Oregon, 
and  in  townships  forty-seven  and  forty-eight  north, 
California. 

August  18,  1908.  Lake  Malheur  Reservation.  Shore 
lines  of  Lakes  Malheur  and  Harney  and  the  streams  and 
waters  connecting  these  lakes,  Oregon. 

August  28,  1908.  Chase  Lake  Reservation.  Public 
lands  about  Chase  Lake,  North  Dakota. 

September  15,  1908.  Pine  Island  Reservation.  Bird 
Island  and  Middle  Island  in  Pine  Island  Sound  on  the 
west  coast  of  Florida. 


368  APPENDIX  B 

September  26,  1908.  Matlacha  Pass  Reservation. 
Three  small  islands  located  in  Matlacha  Pass,  west  coast 
of  Florida. 

September  26,  1908.  Palma  Sola  Reservation.  Small, 
unsurveyed  island  in  Palma  Bay,  Florida. 

October  23,  1908.  Island  Bay  Reservation.  Unsur 
veyed  mangrove  and  other  islands  in  township  forty- 
two  south,  west  coast  of  Florida. 

October  26,  1908.  Loch-Katrine  Reservation.  Lands 
about  reservoir  site  in  Oregon  Basin,  Wyoming. 

January  26,  1909.  Pelican  Island  Reservation.  En 
larged  to  include  several  other  adjacent  islands. 

February  3,  1909.  Hawaiian  Islands  Reservation. 
Islets  and  reefs  situated  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  near  the 
western  extension  of  the  Hawaiian  archipelago. 

February  25,  1909.  Salt  River  Reservation.  Parts 
of  townships  four  and  five  north,  Gila  and  Salt  River 
Meridian,  Arizona. 

February  25,  1909.  East  Park  Reservation.  Parts  of 
townships  seventeen  and  eighteen  north  in  California. 

February  25,  1909.  Deer  Flat  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  parts  of  townships  two  and  three,  Boise  Meridian, 
Idaho. 

February  25,  1909.  Willow  Creek  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  part  of  township  twenty-one,  Montana  Me 
ridian,  Montana. 

February  25,  1909.  Carlsbad  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  two  reservoir  sites  along  Pecos  River  in  town 
ships  eighteen,  nineteen,  twenty,  and  twenty-one  south, 
New  Mexico. 

February  25,  1909.  Rio  Grande  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  parts  of  townships  seven,  eight,  nine,  ten,  eleven, 
twelve,  and  thirteen  south,  Principal  Meridian,  New 
Mexico. 

February  25,  1909.     Cold  Springs  Reservation.     Em- 


APPENDIX  B  369 

bracing  parts  of  townships  four  and  five  north,  Wil 
lamette  Meridian,  Oregon. 

February  25,  1909.  Belle  Fourche  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  parts  of  townships  eight,  nine,  and  ten  north, 
Black  Hills  Meridian,  South  Dakota. 

February  25,  1909.  Strawberry  Valley  Reservation. 
Embracing  parts  of  townships  three  and  four  south, 
Uinta  Meridian,  Utah. 

February  25,  1909.  Keechelus  Reservation.  Embracing 
parts  of  townships  twenty-one  and  twenty-two  north, 
Willamette  Meridian,  Washington. 

February  25,  1909.  Kachess  Reservation.  Embrac 
ing  Kachess  Lakes  reservoir  site,  Washington. 

February  25,  1909.  Clealum  Reservation.  Embrac 
ing  parts  of  townships  twenty,  twenty-one,  and  twenty- 
two  north,  Willamette  Meridian,  Washington. 

February  25,  1909.  Bumping  Lake  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  the  Bumping  Lake  reservoir  site,  Washington. 

February  25,  1909.  Conconully  Reservation.  Embrac 
ing  part  of  township  thirty-five  north,  Willamette  Me 
ridian,  Washington. 

February  25,  1909.  Pathfinder  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  parts  of  townships  twenty-six,  twenty-seven, 
twenty-eight,  twenty-nine,  and  thirty  north,  Wyoming. 

February  25,  1909.  Shoshone  Reservation.  Embrac 
ing  part  of  township  fifty-two  north,  Wyoming. 

February  25,  1909.  Minidoka  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  parts  of  townships  eight  and  nine  south,  Boise 
Meridian,  Idaho. 

February  27,  1909.  Tuxedni  Reservation.  Embrac 
ing  Chisik  Island  and  Egg  Island  entrance  to  Tuxedni 
Harbor  in  Cook  Inlet,  Alaska. 

February  27,  1909.  Saint  Lazaria  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  the  Island  of  Saint  Lazaria,  entrance  to  Sitka 
Sound,  Alaska. 


370  APPENDIX  B 

February  27,  1909.  Yukon  Delta  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  all  the  treeless  tundra  of  the  delta  of  the  Yukon 
River  west  of  longitude  one  hundred  and  sixty-two  de 
grees  and  twenty  minutes  west  from  Greenwich  and 
south  of  the  Yukon  River,  Alaska. 

February  27,  1909.  Culebra  Reservation.  Embrac 
ing  the  islands  of  the  Culebra  group,  Porto  Rico,  except 
ing  Culebra  Island,  which  is  a  naval  and  lighthouse  reser 
vation. 

February  27,  1909.  Farallon  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  the  middle  and  north  Farallon  Islands  and  other 
rocks  northwest  of  the  same,  located  on  the  coast  of 
California  near  San  Francisco. 

February  27,  1909.  Behring  Sea  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  Saint  Matthew  Island,  Hall  Island,  and  Pin 
nacle  Islet,  approximately  in  latitude  sixty  degrees  and 
thirty  minutes  north,  longitude  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  degrees  and  thirty  minutes  west,  in  Behring  Sea, 
Alaska. 

February  27,  1909.  Pribilof  Reservation.  Embracing 
Walrus  Island  and  Otter  Island  of  the  Pribilof  group,  in 
Behring  Sea,  Alaska. 

March  2,  1909.  Bogoslof  Reservation.  Embracing 
volcanic  islands  commonly  known  as  the  Bogoslof  group, 
approximately  in  latitude  fifty-three  degrees  and  fifty- 
eight  minutes  north,  longitude  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
seven  degrees  and  fifty-three  minutes  west  from  Green 
wich,  Behring  Sea,  Alaska. 

Since  then  these  have  been  added: 

April  11,  1911.  Clear  Lake  Reservation.  Embracing 
the  Clear  Lake  reservoir  site,  California.  Modified  by 
executive  order  of  January  13,  1912,  by  eliminating,  for 
administrative  purposes,  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres 
surrounding  the  Reclamation  dam. 


APPENDIX  B  371 

January  11,  1912.  Hazy  Islands  Reservation.  Em 
bracing  Hazy  Island  group,  approximately  in  latitude 
fifty-five  degrees  and  fifty-four  minutes  north,  longitude 
one  hundred  and  thirty-four  degrees  and  thirty-six  min 
utes  west  from  Greenwich,  Alaska. 

January  11,  1912.  Forrester  Island  Reservation. 
Embracing  Forrester  Island  and  Wolf  Rock,  approxi 
mately  in  latitude  fifty-four  degrees  and  forty-eight 
minutes  north,  longitude  one  hundred  and  thirty-three 
degrees  and  thirty-two  minutes  west  from  Greenwich, 
Alaska. 

January  11,  1912.  Niobrara  Reservation.  Embracing 
parts  of  townships  thirty-three  and  thirty-four  north, 
ranges  twenty-six  and  twenty -seven  west,  Sixth  Principal 
Meridian,  Nebraska,  the  same  being  a  part  of  the  aban 
doned  Fort  Niobrara  Military  Reservation.  This  reser 
vation  was  enlarged  by  executive  order  of  November  14, 
1912,  adding  approximately  nine  hundred  acres,  which 
included  the  building  and  old  parade-grounds  of  the 
military  reservation. 

February  21,  1912.  Green  Bay  Reservation.  Em 
braces  Hog  Island  at  the  entrance  to  Green  Bay,  within 
township  thirty-three  north,  range  thirty  east,  of  the 
Fourth  Principal  Meridian,  Wisconsin. 

December  7,  1912.  Chamisso  Island  Reservation. 
Embraces  Chamisso  Island  and  Puffin  and  other  rocky 
islets  in  its  vicinity,  approximately  in  latitude  sixty-six 
degrees  and  thirteen  minutes  north,  longitude  one  hun 
dred  and  sixty-one  degrees  and  fifty-two  minutes  west 
from  Greenwich,  at  the  eastern  end  of  Kotzebue  Sound, 
Alaska. 

December  17,  1912.  Pishkin  Reservation.  Em 
braces  Pishkin  reservoir  site  in  townships  twenty-two 
and  twenty-three  north,  range  seven  west,  Montana 
Principal  Meridian,  Montana. 


372  APPENDIX  B 

December  19,  1912.  Desecheo  Island  Reservation. 
Embraces  Desecheo  Island  in  Mona  Passage,  Porto  Rico, 
but  is  subject  to  naval  and  lighthouse  purposes. 

January  9,  1913.  Gravel  Island  Reservation.  Em 
braces  Gravel  Island  and  Spider  Island,  approximately 
in  latitude  forty-five  degrees  and  fifteen  minutes  north, 
longitude  eighty-six  degrees  and  fifty-eight  minutes 
west  from  Greenwich,  in  Lake  Michigan,  Wisconsin. 

March  3,  1913.  Aleutian  Islands  Reservation.  Em 
braces  all  of  the  islands  of  the  Aleutian  chain,  Alaska, 
including  Unimak  and  Sannak  Islands  on  the  east  and 
Otter  Island  on  the  west,  reserved  for  preserve  and  breed 
ing-ground  for  native  birds,  and  in  addition  thereto  for 
the  propagation  of  reindeer  and  fur-bearing  animals  and 
encouragement  and  development  of  the  fisheries. 

April  21,  1913.  Walker  Lake  Reservation.  Embraces 
9.68  acres  of  land  in  section  one,  township  fifteen  north, 
range  twelve  east,  and  five  acres  in  township  sixteen 
north,  range  twelve  east,  of  the  Fifth  Principal  Meridian, 
Arkansas. 

May  6,  1913.  Petit  Bois  Island  Reservation.  Em 
braces  all  of  the  public  land  upon  Petit  Bois  Island  located 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  about  ten  miles  off  the  coast  of 
Alabama  and  Mississippi,  in  townships  nine  and  ten  south, 
ranges  three  and  four  west  of  Saint  Stephens  Meridian. 

September  4,  1913.  Anaho  Island  Reservation.  Em 
braces  Anaho  Island  in  Pyramid  Lake,  Nevada. 

June  6,  1914.  Smith  Island  Reservation.  Embraces 
Smith  and  Minor  Islands,  situated  in  the  Straits  of  Juan 
de  Fuca,  about  fourteen  miles  north  by  west  from  Port 
Townsend,  Washington. 

January  20,  1915.  Ediz  Hook  Reservation.  Embraces 
an  arm  of  land  extending  into  the  Straits  of  Juan  de  Fuca, 
in  township  thirty -one  north,  range  six  west  of  Willamette 
Meridian,  Washington. 


APPENDIX  B  373 

January  20,  1915.  Dungeness  Spit  Reservation.  Em 
braces  an  arm  of  land  extending  into  the  Straits  of  Juan 
de  Fuca,  in  township  thirty-one  north,  ranges  three  and 
four  west  of  Willamette  Meridian,  Washington. 

By  executive  order  of  March  19,  1913,  the  protection 
of  native  birds  within  the  Panama  Canal  Zone  was  estab 
lished,  the  jurisdiction  over  same  to  lie  with  the  Isthmian 
Canal  Commission  and  its  successor,  the  governor  of  the 
Canal  Zone,  and  on  January  27,  1914,  an  amendatory 
executive  order  was  issued  prohibiting  night  hunting,  the 
use  of  spring-guns  and  traps,  etc.,  with  additional  penal 
ties  therefor. 


LIFE-HISTORIES  OF 
AFRICAN  GAME  ANIMALS 

By 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

AND 

EDMUND  HELLER 

With  over  125  illustrations  from  drawings  by 
Philip  R.  Goodwin  and  from  photographs, 
and  with  40  faunal  maps.  Two  volumes. 
Royal  8vo,  798  pp.  Price  $10.00  net. 

The  "  Life-Histories  of  African  Game  Animals  "  repre 
sents  the  first  attempt  to  deal  with  the  giant  animals  of 
Africa  substantially  along  the  lines  of  Dr.  Hart  Merriam's 
volume  on  the  mammals  of  the  Adirondacks  and  of  Mr. 
Thompson  Seton's  two  volumes  on  the  mammals  of  Mani 
toba.  It  is  the  first  attempt  that  has  ever  been  made  in 
the  field  of  productive  scientific  scholarship  as  regards  the 
big  animals  of  any  continent;  and  Africa  is  the  continent 
which  in  variety,  numbers,  and  interest  of  the  great  game 
on  the  whole  surpasses  even  Asia  and  vastly  surpasses  any 
other  continent.  The  book  is  of  interest  to  the  profes 
sional  scientist,  to  the  scientific  layman,  and  to  the  intelli 
gent  sportsman. 

No  book  of  this  kind  could  be  written  unless  by  a  man 
who  is  not  only  a  trained  scientist  but  an  accomplished 
field-naturalist  and  observer  and  a  successful  big-game 
hunter  and  wanderer  in  the  wilderness.  In  addition  to 
all  these  qualifications  the  writer  should  be  a  man  of  let 
ters,  able  to  write  with  interest  of  that  which  he  has  seen. 
No  single  man  combining  these  qualities  and  with  the 
necessary  experience  to  deal  with  the  big  game  of  a  conti- 


nent  has  yet  appeared,  and  no  book  like  the  present  one 
has  ever  been  written.  There  are  plenty  of  compilations 
by  closet  naturalists  about  the  large  animals  of  different 
regions,  and  a  multitude  of  books  on  hunting  and  travel; 
but  in  the  present  case  two  men  have  joined  to  do  what 
neither  could  have  done  separately,  and  the  result  is  a 
book  which  is  a  model  of  what  should  be  done  for  all 
other  continents  and  also  for  the  great  West  African  forest 
and  the  North  African  desert,  neither  of  which  is  covered 
by  the  present  work. 

The  volume  contains  photographs  of  almost  every 
species  described;  maps  showing  the  distribution  of  each 
species;  photographs  of  the  distinctive  vegetation;  and 
also  maps  of  the  faunal  areas  and  life-zones  of  east  equa 
torial  Africa.  There  are  also  drawings  to  illustrate  the 
wild  life  as  it  could  not  be  illustrated  by  photographs. 

The  life-histories  of  game  animals  offer  an  almost 
virgin  field  for  investigation  and  study.  The  present 
treatise  is  a  faithful  account  of  what  Messrs.  Roosevelt 
and  Heller  have  themselves  observed.  It  is  a  fuller  ac 
count  than  has  ever  before  been  submitted  on  the  subject. 
But  the  authors  themselves  emphatically  state  that  its 
greatest  value  must  lie  in  its  being  treated  primarily  as  a 
suggestion  of  what  is  still  open  for  discovery  in  the  vast 
field  that  treats  not  only  of  the  physical  traits  but  of  the 
queer  psychology  of  mammals  and  of  the  way  in  which 
their  life-habits  are  modified  by  their  surroundings.  Big- 
game  hunters  who  are  more  than  illiterate  game-butchers, 
and  faunal  naturalists  who  realise  that  outdoor  work  is 
at  least  as  important  to  the  scientist  as  work  in  the  labora 
tory,  and  all  intelligent  men  who,  without  being  scientists, 
are  interested  in  scientific  matters  as  well  as  in  the  most 
interesting,  the  hugest,  and  the  most  terrible  of  the  beasts 
of  the  chase  will  find  in  this  book  what  cannot  anywhere 
else  be  found. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS  -  New  York 


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